Lust Lust Lust One of my favourite records is called Lust Lust Lust. It's a wonderful album by the Raveonettes who I once described as being like Buddy Holly in a blender. And Lust is this melodic cacophony of reverb-soaked surf guitar drenched in a sea of thick, dense, beautiful noise. Anyway, the point is, how do you feel about that? Does that sound like an appropriate admission for a Christian, let alone an elder of a church? I mean - lust. Not just once but three times. If you know your Bible, you know that lust isn't something to joke about or glory in. This is the stuff you wanna flee from - just read 1 Corinthians. On the surface, it sounds so godless and unnecessary, right? But the thing is, if it's wrong for me in principle as a Christian to listen to something named after something deadly serious and sinful, well, that doesn't stop me from enjoying it. It's music, and it's exactly my taste, and I really enjoy it. So, is that a problem? I pose t...

Have you ever impressed yourself? I reckon you probably have, at least once. Even if it was only in a little way. I've had many moments of impressing myself over the years. Musically, artistically, intellectually, personally. Being made in God's image, we often achieve wonderful things, even when we're not even intending to seek greatness for ourselves. And the things we do that impress us, often lead to situations that benefit other people. People have paid to see me play songs I wrote with a band I was in (not that I think it's any good anymore, mind). My artwork has been exhibited in a gallery and people have bought it to hang on their walls for their own enjoyment. If you've read this blog before, you'll notice it looks rather different at the moment. That's because I had a little go at a re-branding during my lunch break. It's starts with the concept of what might be achievable, then you have a go at the creation process, and if you feel impres...

You might have heard the phrase "the now and the not yet" or something along those lines, perhaps during a Bible study or sermon. It's often a helpful way to categorise the difference between our status and our experience as Christians. Which is, in some ways, one of the most frustrating aspects of the Christian life - that though we are justified, we are not yet glorified (although we are being sanctified). What justification means is that God sees the Christian as he sees Christ - perfect, sinless, spotless, righteous. And of course, in that legal sense, we do have a new status before God. In his eyes justified people have shifted categories from "sinner under condemnation" to "saint, no longer under condemnation". As complete and perfect as he intended us to be. That truth can be frustrating, however, in the sense that it doesn't fully match up to our current Christian experience (yet). Our status and our experience are often at od...

Does God care about the way we look? Does he care about our bodies, our hairstyles or our clothing? Does he care about tattoos or a wonky nose - or perhaps a scar or physical defect? In my church, we generally don't care about what people look like. Black, white, fat, thin, fashionable, unfashionable. How someone looks might be a very occasional point of interest, but generally speaking, what someone looks like will not have a significant influence on our judgement or value of a person. Heck, even I managed to get away with leading a Sunday service in shorts without getting so much as a raised eyebrow. Whilst the modern day, western, evangelical church scene will be keen to point out that there are more important things to worry about than what people look like - taking a sort of "man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart" approach - the rest of the world is obsessed with personal appearance. Beauty is big business and hot topic All you ha...

It's been rather a long while since I last made time for a blog post. Lots to do in life and lots to do that fulfils the same desire as blog writing. So blogging has slipped down the pecking order somewhat. Today has been a day of tidying and clearing and re-organisation. And whilst clearing the tit from the tat in that lazily repurposed cupboard I call an office, I came across my Bible reading notes from last year. And, since I've wanted to write about this for a little while, I suppose that now's as good a time as any. And I can tell you that these notes are probably some of the most valuable things that I could possibly hope to own. Not because they are brilliant, but because they are - in conjunction with the Bible reading itself - what God has used to effect a lot of change in my life. Now, at the risk of sounding like I'm bragging, my discipline for reading the Bible is pretty good (in many ways). And actually, the more I do it, the easier it gets and the...

The thing I find most frustrating as a graphic designer is when a client or colleague chooses the worst option presented to them or requests an amendment to a design that will make it worse, or just plain bad. Sometimes I just have to concede. Sometimes I just have to make do and follow through with the bad choice. But sometimes good design is really worth fighting for. What makes a really good piece of design worth fighting for is the benefit it provides that would not be achieved otherwise. Design that's worth fighting for is design that adds value, a lot of value, quantifiable value, compared to the alternative. And so, I see it as part of my job to, as far as is appropriate, help the client or colleague understand why one design is better than another - to help them have their perceptions changed. Often, I want to educate those I work with why I believe a certain design is better than another. I want them to end up on my side. I want them to change their mind - their per...

We say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Which means we define beauty by our preferences. Therefore, if we do not experience beauty in any given situation, we judge that there is no beauty there. We do this by saying things like, I don’t like this particular piece of music, therefore it is not good music. We tend to ignore the objective reality of beauty and promote the subjective reality of our own personal tastes, making it the overruling determiner of what is beautiful or not. But beauty is not subjective, beauty is objective. It exists whether we perceive it or not. It is our tastes that are subjective. Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder, it is in the intentions of the author. And so, very often, in order to truly apprehend beauty, we need to reorient our perceptions and look beyond merely what we instinctively prefer, and in many instances, learn to appreciate something we might not be so naturally inclined towards. That's where the moral and the aesth...