This is something most of us will never see. Taken by the crew of the International Space station, this epic time lapse captures the curvature of the earth as the space ship orbits the planet.

Story is a unique event for creatives in the church.  I have to say I’ve never seen anything quite like it.  It was the best experience at a conference I have ever had.

It had nothing to do with the quality of speakers, the music, or the free Nolan Bag filled with swag, though all of that was incredible.  It was the people.  There was a spirit of welcoming and a sense of belonging that filled the whole event, and it was truly special.

There were so many wonderful experiences at Story, to sum it all up doesn’t seem possible.  There were unexpected friendships, soul-stirring discussions over deep-dish pizza, and mind-altering insights, which my mind, in all it’s abstract wanderings, is still trying to process.

A good conference should expand community, and that’s what Story did.  Meeting other like-minded people, I was inspired to share more, to listen more, to write more, to be more intentional and patient in the creation process, and, to make a movie.

The last few days I’ve been letting the whole experience marinate.  My brain was full.  It needed to digest.

Yesterday I spent five hours in the car driving to the Outer Banks, and I came to a conclusion about the conference.

There are three reactions an artist can have toward others’ work:

1. Envy – a feeling of discontentment and covetousness with regard to what others have created
2. Aspiration – inspiration from what others have created, and a healthy (or unhealthy) motivation to be a part, or create more yourself.
3. Celebration – simply just to enjoy, share, and celebrate, with no agenda.

Celebration is what I felt at Story.

I use to go to conferences with a little sense of anxiety.  Feeling the pressure to meet a certain person, to sell myself, to hand out all my business cards and make the trip worth while.  This time I decided I was going to just be.  Build relationships.  Soak it in.  And see what the Lord does.

I gave away two business cards, because only two people said, “do you have a card?”

There are stories that need to be told.  But you might not be the one to tell it.  And that’s okay.  Embrace what is created by others.  Support it.  Share it.  Celebrate it.  There’s time.  Soon it will be your turn to create, and you will need the same support.  If creatives in the church grasp this mentality, we will create amazing, amazing things.

Because we can do more together than we can on our own.

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matthew 6: 25-34

Right now, as we speak, they inhabit Mars, going about their business making babies and debating politics.  But, they hide.  No one has seen them because they live under the surface of the planet.

Of course, I can’t prove it.  But you can’t disprove it either.

I started to think that faith was like this.  Because just like subterranean martians, God hides.  You can’t prove he exists.  And you can’t disprove it.

That’s the funny thing about faith.  By definition, it is in things unseen.  And it says in the Bible that without faith it’s impossible to please God.  It can all start to sound kind of ridiculous when you think about it.  It’s like someone is pulling one over on us.  Why would we want to please someone that we can’t even prove is real in the first place?

It’s like telling us that without faith it’s impossible to please the martians.  Why would I want to please the martians? 

Then one day I realized that the God/martian comparison just doesn’t hold water.

Let me direct your attention to the fish…

Do you know it is possible for a fish to not believe in water?  In fact, I think it is possible for a fish to go its whole life without acknowledging water’s existence.

This may sound ridiculous to you at first.  But if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense.  They don’t see the water, simply because its everywhere and they look right through it.  They keep on swimming, never realizing that in it and by it and through it they move.  Many of them would feel they have no reason to talk about it.  It’s all around them, but it in a very real sense has nothing to do with them.  They go on about their business, making babies and debating politics, swimming through the water that they don’t even know is there.

But there are unexplained things.  Like bubbles, rip tides, and the Eastern Australian current.  And there is a mysterious myth of a surface, which some have claimed to have seen, even broken through.

And those who have seen these or experienced these are sure that there is more than meets the eye…

God is not like the martians.  He is more like… water.

A fish may not believe in water, but that doesn’t change the fact that everything around him is swimming in it.

How is it that two people can look at the same thing, and one finds reason to believe and the other finds reason to disbelieve?  It is because God is like water.  We move right through him, going about our business, making babies and debating politics.

The entire universe is swimming in God.  

Here is the beautiful thing: even though God hides, he hides everywhere.  There is no where he can not be found.  And if we don’t want to see him, we won’t, and if we want to, we will.

There are unexplained things.  Like miracles, happy accidents, and rumors of resurrection.  And there is a mysterious myth of an afterlife, which some have claimed to have seen, even broken through.

Believing in God is not like believing in the martians.  Nothing is swimming in the martians.  I can’t look at the sunrise and think, wow, what amazing martians.  That doesn’t make any sense.

Consider, once a fish’s eyes are opened to the existence of water around him, he can’t not see it.  How did I miss this? he would think to himself.  How could I have been so blind?

I drove down to Florida with my parents the day I heard the news.  All of his possessions were to be divided between his children and grandchildren.  The first thing I received was his wallet.

It was wrapped in a ziplock bag with his glasses and wrist watch.  It was thick.  I’m not sure how he sat down with this thing in his pocket.  I opened it and emptied it’s contents.  Credit cards, insurance cards, receipts, business cards (including mine), drug prescription slips, seventeen dollars, and a piece of paper with the birthday dates of his grandchildren.  It was a look into his personal finance, his medical history, and his daily routine.

And then there was that which was most important to him.  Crammed into a plastic sleeve was over 25 photographs, covering a time span of over 50 years…

If you are familiar with his movies you will understand why.  An M. Night Shyamalan moment is a significant turning point in a story that seems insignificant at the time.  These have also been called “divine appointments”, “happy accidents”, etc.

I have a bad habit of looking too much into these moments.  The fact that I have even coined the term is a little preposterous.  I assume this has something to do with watching too many movies.

Have you ever thought something was an M. Night Shyamalan moment, and then it wasn’t?  Perhaps you thought God was calling you to something, leading you somewhere, bringing you a wife or a husband, a mentor, a partner in crime, a new career, and then nothing came of it. You were rejected. The person was a disappointment. The situation was not what you thought. You didn’t get the job you thought you would get.  You crashed your car and were hospitalized.

Here’s the problem with M. Night Shyamalan moments…

Our expectations are almost always centered around selfishness.

It’s not about having low expectations, it’s about having realistic expectations.  It’s about realizing that it’s not so much about what God is doing around us, but in us. It’s not about what’s going to happen, it’s about what is happening.

These divine appointments, these seemingly significant turning points, they have much less to do with what is happening or going to happen externally, and much more to do with what God is doing in each of us internally.

I have learned that everything does happen for a reason, just never the reason you think. If you are a Christian, what God is doing is sanctifying you, making you more like him. That is his primary interest. And he is sanctifying his church. And he will bring annoying and inconvenient trials into your life, and at times they won’t make any sense.  He will bring small moments that you are sure will open the flood gates, then the flood gates never open.  There’s a reason, just not the reason you expected.

A: So you don’t believe there is an objective reality?

B: Well, I at least don’t think we can know it.

A: (looking out the window)  Look at that tree right there.

B: Okay.

A: What do you see?

B: Uh.  A tree.  What do you see?

A: A tree.

B: Okay.

(awkward silence)

B: Okay. I see a tree. With branches. Leaves.

A: Is that all?

B: I see what once was a seed, blooming into leaves, flowers, branches.  I see a giver of oxygen and a producer of more seeds of its kind.  I see a home for insects, a climbing tower for adventurous children, and a refuge for the birds of the sky.  I see the wind blow.  I see shade under the sun.  I could go on I suppose.

A: You could walk by that tree every day and never actually see what you just described.  It doesn’t mean it wasn’t always the reality.  There is always more than what we actually see.  Always.

If I were to have a problem with Rob Bell it would be that trying to figure out what exactly he believes is like trying to figure out Inception.

But that’s what we love about him, right? He provokes us, makes us think.

I had a philosophy teacher like this.

I’m currently reading Velvet Elvis. It is a fantastic book. He asks questions, just like he does in this video, that I’ve never thought of before. Questions that confound. Questions we’re afraid to ask. Questions that make you wonder whether or not you should be asking them. The funny thing is, he never clearly states his theological position in orthodox terms. He even has a section in the book about labels and how they can be misleading.

A friend of mine calls him the Steve Jobs of Christianity.

A lot of people seem to think Bell has gone off the deep end with this video. The word “heresy” has been thrown around. I don’t think this is warranted, for two reasons. First, he hasn’t made his position clear. The only propositional statement he has made is that love wins. But we have to buy his book to find out what exactly that means.

Secondly, asking a provocative question in a provocative manner is not heresy. It is a method of teaching that is used throughout the Bible.

I’m going to say something very controversial here. I think people are afraid of Bell the same way people were afraid of Jesus.

Just to be clear, I’m not saying Bell is more like Jesus than Piper or Driscoll or Justin Taylor. I’m also not saying that people are afraid that Rob Bell might be Jesus. What I’m saying is that he is using a teaching method that is more similar to Jesus. He is asking thoughtful questions that provoke us to explore our faith in a deeper way, instead of just accepting simple, facile answers.

Why does it matter to us what Rob Bell believes? Because we think we want the truth, but we don’t really. We want answers that make sense to our way of thinking.

We are afraid of what we don’t understand. We don’t like it when we can’t wrap our mind around something, so we look for labels that allow us to fit a person’s teaching into our box. We want to know exactly what Rob Bell believes so that we we will be comfortable with him, so that we can believe what he says without having to worry about asking questions that challenge us.

It’s the same thing the Pharisees did to Jesus.

“Teacher, is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?” In other words, what is your stance on taxes? What is your political position? Are you conservative, Jesus?

He calls them out, because they were trying to trap him and get him to say something incriminating. Then he answers their question with another question.

“Whose image is on the coin?”

“Caesar’s”, they reply.

“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s”.

And the Gospel of Matthew says they went away amazed. Because he had evaded their trap. And here is what I LOVE about this answer. It is left open to any interpretation. The Roman nationalist would walk away going, good, Jesus is conservative, or whatever. But only the true seeker – only the wise – would understand what Jesus was actually saying.

What is God’s?

Everything.

Everything belongs to God!

Even Caesar’s coins.

So Jesus asks questions that can be answered in different ways, but that makes the truth accessible to those that are truly seeking.

That’s what Rob Bell is doing.

He’s letting us discuss things among ourselves.

And truth still marches on.

“Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills.”  -Napoleon Dynamite

A philosophy professor named Denis Hutton said that art is nothing more than sexual selection at work.  The one with artistic skill has a reproductive advantage over the one without skills.

In other words, art is all about sex.

The common denominator in all art, Dutton says, is the attraction to “something done well.”  It is an “adaptive effect” belonging to humanity’s evolved psychology.  This was all in a Ted Talk he did called “A Darwinian Theory Of Beauty”.  Coming across this talk was a big deal for me.  In my mind, art and aesthetic beauty has always been one of the most persuasive evidences for the existence of God.  So listening to this talk made me stop.  Think.  Ponder.

Why do I think art and beauty is evidence for God?  Isn’t it easily explained by natural selection?

I am convinced there is much more to the psychology of artistic enjoyment then “things done well”.  We like music, not just because of the skill it takes, but because of how it makes us feel.  We don’t watch a magician for his skill, we watch a magician to be duped.  We watch movies because for some reason we identify with heroes and are moved by love, justice, and sacrifice.

Some of us like art that makes us think.  Some of us like art that makes us cry.  Some of us like art that makes us happy.  We like to be held in suspense, tricked, and carried away into other worlds.  We crave things that stimulate in us wonder and imagination.

Why do I think this is evidence for God?  Because the alternative is so much more implausible.

Sexual selection may be a good theory for why college guys that play guitar are more likely to get a girlfriend.  It doesn’t explain the complexities of imagination, beauty, and emotion that weave throughout the fabric our psychology.  Further, it can’t explain how art and beauty go beyond our inner emotions and unknowingly express metaphors that are open to endless interpretations (Benjamin Wiker and Jonathan Witt write about the significance of this at length in the book A Meaningful World).

If there is no intelligent creator, than art is nothing more than a messy bi-product of natural selection.  This is kind of like saying that Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa by vomiting on the canvas.  At least, that’s how I see it.

What’s most interesting to me is that Dutton talks about evolution with a religious fervor, using phrases like “evolution tricks us”, “that’s evolution’s way of…” and “art is a gift.”  It’s almost as if in some way, he does believe in a creator, just not one that he has to be accountable to.