Author: Jake Johnson

"Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here And you must treat it as a powerful stranger." -- David Wagoner, "Lost" "Oh, the places you'll go!" -- Dr. Seuss "It is in the shelter of each other that the people live." -- Irish proverb It's … Continue reading Being Here.

"But God is full of grace and his faithfulness is vastThere is safety in the moments when the shit has hit the fanNot some vindictive motherfucker, nor is he shitty at his jobWhat words to hear" -- "Persevere," Gang of Youths "[...] Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and … Continue reading On Asking Questions

"And the entire area -- including the graveyard and ash dump in the valley, and all the fields in the Kidron Valley on the east as far as the Horse Gate -- will be holy to the Lord. The city will never again be destroyed." -- Jeremiah 31:40 "God gives of God's self, and that … Continue reading Seeing the Dying God

Anastasis (harrowing of hell), 1310-1320. It is a familiar story. One that has been told for millennia, passed down from generation to generation across various ethnic and racial backgrounds. Despite the relatively recent debates in the past few centuries regarding the “historicity” of the story (which, I would argue, is not all that important), the … Continue reading What the Hell?

"All moments are key moments, and life itself is grace." -- Frederick Buechner "I've been to church, I've read the book, I know He's here, but I don't look." -- George Strait It is the poet, not the pragmatic, who teaches us what it means to know God. To alter the words of G.K. Chesterton … Continue reading The Stranger That is God

"Beauty will save the world." -- The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoyevsky "'I said I've told you all I know. If you push me far enough, all I really know is that he was a fine fisherman.''You know more than that,' my father said. 'He was beautiful.'" -- A River Runs Through It, Norman Maclean I live … Continue reading Grace, Beauty, and Resurrection

"Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, 'Surely the Lord is in this place, and I wasn’t even aware of it!' [...] The next morning Jacob got up very early. He took the stone he had rested his head against, and he set it upright as a memorial pillar. Then he poured olive oil over it. … Continue reading The Sacredness of a Coffee Shop

(Credit to Brian Zahnd for introducing me to the idea of searching for God in music) Come down from your mountainYour high-rise apartmentAnd tell me of the God you know who bleedsAnd what to tell my daughterWhen she asks so many questionsAnd I fail to fill her heaviness with peaceWell, I've got no answersFor hurt … Continue reading Finding God in the Music

"He is the one who tells us we must love our enemies and then tells his own enemies that they are vipers and stink of death underneath their whitewash and tells them that exactly because he loves them." -- Frederick Buechner "He who has seen me has seen the Father." -- John 14:9 I remember … Continue reading Do You See Me?

C.S. Lewis was right in saying that "the door of which we have been knocking on all our lives will open at last," and of course the door he refers to is the Great Door of that far off yet intimately close country, which we all long for and experience glimpses of from time to … Continue reading The Hunger for Home