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?
Author: Jake Johnson
My name is Jake Johnson. You can find me most days at a Starbucks in Newnan, Georgia, although I'd prefer to be drinking a beer off the coast of Jamaica. I desire to live with purpose and passion in a world that is rapidly losing both, and I pray that what I write may impact others to live purposefully and passionately. When I'm not writing, I enjoy reading, running, and all things C.S. Lewis. I'm an avid thinker of Christian philosophy and psychology, and am studying social and behavioral health with the intent of becoming a counselor.
The Stranger That is God
"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
Grace, Beauty, and Resurrection
"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
The Sacredness of a Coffee Shop
"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
Finding God in the Music
(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
Do You See Me?
"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?
The Hunger for Home
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
Broken Beauty
"What in the world am I looking for? What is the peace that I can't find?" -- "This Beautiful Life", Colony House "...and I still haven't found what I'm looking for." -- U2 Beauty is perhaps the one thing that always brings me back to God. The beauty of a sunset. The beauty of a … Continue reading Broken Beauty
What Do You Want?
As Thoreau told us over a century and a half ago, most men live lives of quiet desperation. I will expand that and say that most men live as practical agnostics. Sure, we know our worship songs. We read our Bibles. We pray. We may even have our systematic theology right. Our spiritual lives are … Continue reading What Do You Want?
Farewell to the Shadowlands
"Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things -- trees and grass and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the … Continue reading Farewell to the Shadowlands
