almost there. (Taken with instagram)
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Tonight’s first Font Guild was fabulous.
What a great turnout.Thanks to all who packed into our little place to huddle around laptops and geek out about typeface. I knew you were out there. You just needed someone crazy enough to get you all into the same room.
Design-speak, laughter, inspiration, and peruvian chicken pretty much sums up the evening.
Tonight’s “memorable quote award” goes to Ben Grace.
“Look at you! You’re in love with a serial killer! How can you call yourself a Christian?”
(there’s a long story behind this, but I’m just going to let it hang out there in the abstract. It’s better that way).
If you’re in New York and you are into design, you really need get to one of these. It just may brighten your life (or at the very least get you out of your routine).
Stay tuned. The next gathering is on June 28.
I’m excited that we’re kicking off Forefront’s Font Guild this evening.
I don’t know why I’ve always loved typography, but it’s long been one of my favorite things.
I know, I know. I sound borderline psychotic, don’t I?
But how many times have you ever looked at an ad, or read an article on a webpage, or looked at a logo and thought to yourself, “What the heck was this designer thinking?”
Many people have no opinion about design, but I do. Many people believe that form is the slave of function, but I’ve always seen them as equals.
If any of that sounds even the tiniest bit close to the way you “tick,” then you’re absolutely going to love this gathering, and (maybe for the first time in a very long while) find yourself enjoying an evening among your own kind.
See you tonight.
P.S. - If you haven’t RSVP’d to the Font Guild yet, please do so here.
“I will ascend to the tops of the clouds,
I will make myself like the Most High.”
But you are brought down to Sheol,
to the depths of the Pit.
- Isaiah 14:14-15
My devotional times are a continual back and forth between growth and giving up
It seems that my time with God runs on a clock of seasons. Droves of “spiritual” people would probably say that this is due to laziness, a person driven by whims, or temporal feelings - but this is a generalization on their part. My relationship with God is deliberate and complex.
Each morning when I rise, I do my best to spend time with God. (I mean that generically, of course). That can mean a lot of different things.
- Sometimes I read something that challenges my thinking.
- Other times I sit quietly by my living room window, looking out over Broadway at the water towers on the rooftops of the buildings across the street.
- Often, I meditate.
- Other times I pray.
I’d say that nine times out of ten, what I learn most in these instances is that I am utterly incapable of reaching God. I am unable to do anything, say anything, or think anything (or not think anything), that triggers the same response from the Divine each time.
I’ve been searching for a repeatable method that I can contact God with for most of my adult life, but I haven’t found it. The minute I find a method that does cause such an encounter, it stops working once I try to repeat it.
It’s as if God is toying with me.
I have a hunch that this may be how it’s supposed to be. It’s just when I decide I’m going to give up all of this “time with God crap,” that I am made keenly aware that he is present, real, and close.
It seems that God “shows up” when I “give up.”
I will keep trying to find a repeatable method that brings God around, but I don’t think I’ll ever find one. God is smarter than that, and I don’t think he will allow himself to be reduced to my devotional formulas.
We cannot make ourselves like the Most High. There’s nothing we can do to reach him or to bring him close.
He is always present, always close, and we get him simply because “he is.”
Mike Coia and I spent a bunch of time last fall at Bryant Park playing ping-pong. All of the ping-pong games at Bryant are pick up games. Most of the time, Mike and I could get a table on our own, and that would be fun because we were both at about the same skill level. But when we had to play with people who actually knew how to play, it was no fun. They were so above and beyond our skill level, that playing with them only made me see how absolutely poor of a ping pong player I was (and if you think I am bad at ping pong you should see Mike).
Do you ever feel un-skilled in your prayer life? Do you ever wonder whether prayer can be a practice that you can actually be “good at”? Do you ever find yourself being envious of another’s spirituality or closeness with God?
I do all the time.
My prayer life is one that is comprised of a steady sort of “satisfied dissatisfaction.” It’s not where it used to be, but it’s not where I want it to be either. I want it to be deeper, more authentic, and more meaningful - and I have a hunch that I may be wanting that for the rest of my life.
The truth about the spiritual life is that it is one of “arriving,” not of “having arrived.”
Spirituality is not about looking at our neighbor, Saint Peter, Saint Paul, or even Jesus, and making a comparison that drives us to compete with them. On the contrary, when we look at those who are (seemingly) far ahead of us in the spiritual walk, it ought to encourage us to to know that this kind of walk with God is very possible for human beings, and that God is calling us to that. He is inviting us to that.
It’s not a critique. It’s an invitation.
There is no competition going on in the Kingdom of God where God rewards those who are the most skillfull at their prayer lives. On the contrary, God rewards authenticity and all honest approaches of him.
That is what prayer is all about.
