KindlingsFest 2010 explored theme of Friends for the Journey with Luci Shaw, Dr. Hal Poe, Dr. Jeff Keuss, Nigel Goodwin, Dr. Jerry Root, Jeff Johnson, and artists-in-residence Kathy Hastings, Bob Bennett and Corrie Moore. Join us in 2011 on Orcas Island July 27-30, 2011.

Hi there!  As of today, my newest book, About You, Fully Human: Fully Alive, is now available online and at bookstores everywhere.  If I may be so bold as to ask this favor? If you have enjoyed my writing, speaking, broadcasting, podcasting or whatever other contact we’ve had, I hope you run right out and buy a copy or order online for your kindle!  Please read it and then post online comments at Amazon, make mentions on your Facebook or blogs, or suggest this book for your book groups ~

In About You I explore three major themes:

One answers the question: What can humans do to please God?
St. Irenaeus answers saying, “The glory of God is man fully alive.”

The second answers the question: What was the mission of Jesus?
Hans Rookmaaker answers saying, Jesus didn’t come to make us Christian; Jesus came to make us fully human.”
Here I try to show Jesus as a humanizer not religionizer

The third answers the question: What does fully human look like?
The answer comes from my own understanding that regardless of nationality, ethnic origin, religion or creed, each and every person on earth is a bearer of God’s image creatively, spiritually, intelligently, morally and relationally in ways unique to them.

Here are some stellar endorsements!
“The human race, in its mass confusion and conflict, asks the existential questions to which there seem to be no solid answers. In the sweep of a mere fourteen chapters, Dick Staub offers us the coherent narrative of the Why of humanity, the How of healing, and the Who of the Creator, giving firm ground for thoughtful questioners to stand on.”
—Luci Shaw, poet and author, Breath for the Bones, Harvesting Fog

“Broadcaster, writer, lover of all things C.S. Lewis, raconteur par excellence and great friend, Dick Staub is one of the few people I’ve met who truly cares about people becoming fully human. He is a faithful and effective guide on the journey to do just that.”
— Bill Kinnon, Moving Image creator, writer, blogger

“Dick Staub’s insight into our present age and our own deep longings lead us on a “rowdy pilgrimage” to discover the riches that lay within our unique design while pointing us to the fully human life.” —Scott and Pam Nolte, theatre artists and co-founders, Taproot Theatre

“Staub’s refreshingly honest book doesn’t flinch at the reality of our fallenness, but offers fresh insight into a profound mystery: Why does God love us? What is wrong with the current picture of our lives? How can it be painted more beautifully and truly to match the vision of the Artist?” —Bruce Herman, artist and Lothlorien Distinguished Chair in Fine Arts, Gordon College

“Dick Staub offers a cup of cold, clear water for all of those who thirst for something significant beyond the oft-superficial and bankrupt materialism of the prevailing culture.” —Jeff Johnson, singer and songwriter, Windham Hill/Ark Music

“About You  is a profound, capacious research into what we humans might both be and become as we find, focus and follow the intentionality of The Great Artist.”
—Nigel Goodwin, United Kingdom based actor and international arts advocate

“Dick Staub is a thoughtful, creative and insightful thinker, who journey’s into the deep questions of life.  About You is a treasure map, where Dick serves as both sage and guide, gently leading us to a broader understanding of our own humanity, it’s source and the fullness therein. A must read for fellow sojourners on the road to becoming fully human.” —John Priddy, CEO, Priddy Brothers

Hope to hear your feedback when you read About You!

Recently I was asked to deliver a devotional to the board of IMAGE Journal, a glorious periodical that grapples with the intersection of faith, art and mystery. Taking up the subject of how art helps us “see God,” I observed that in the last years of his life Tolstoy gathered his favorite thoughts in a daily reader. Like Tolstoy instead of a scriptural exposition, I compiled a collection of quotes on how the arts help people see God, which I now share with you. Consider it a chance to sneak a peak at the “kindergarten drawing.”

Done properly art illuminates the path to God. The late Madeleine L Engle said, “we don’t want to feel less when we have finished a book; we want to feel that new possibilities have been opened to us. We don’t want to close a book with a sense that life is totally unfair and that there is no light in the darkness; we want to feel that we have been given illumination.”

Art that connects is art that flows from and connects to personal pain and fallenness. Julian of Norwich prayed a simple prayer: “O God, please give me three wounds; the wound of contrition and the wound of compassion and the wound of longing after God.” Then she added this little postscript which I think is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read: ‘This I ask without condition.’”

Rabbi Abraham Heschel insisted “unless God is of central importance, God is of no importance at all.” So Bono explains, “the music that really turns me on is either running toward God or away from God. Both recognize the pivot; that God is at the centre of the jaunt.”

Art explores mystery. In his novel As It Is In Heaven Irish writer Niall Williams tells the story of a man whose wife and daughter are killed in a head on collision with a drunk driver. On the opening page he sets the tone, “there are only three great puzzles in the world. The puzzle of love, the puzzle of death, and between each of these and part of both of them, the puzzle of God. God is the greatest puzzle of all.”

Many artists, even irreligious ones experience the transcendent while making their art. I think this is because humans are created in the image of a creative God and when we practice our craft and do it well we connect with God. Novelist John Updike confessed to this when he said, “I feel I am closest to God when writing. You’re singing praises. You’re describing the world, as it is. And even if the passages turn out sordid or depressing, there’s something holy about the truth.”

J.R.R. Tolkien said that artists are “sub-creators and as such, even their best work should be done humbly in recognition of their inadequacy as tools in Gods hands. James Lee Burke (one of only two authors to win two Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America) describes the artist as an unworthy co-creator with God: “God might choose fools and people who glow with neurosis for his partners in creation, but he doesn’t make mistakes.”

Today’s artist will be tempted to “dumb down” their work to make it relevant in a superficial age, a problem identified by national book award winner Jonathan Franzen, who after the success of his novel, The Corrections clarified the challenge, “the novelist has more and more to say to readers who have less and less time to read: where to find the energy to engage a culture in crisis when the crisis consists in the impossibility of engaging the culture?”

The stakes are high, but art that illuminates the path to God is essential in a polluted age where souls are gasping for the fresh spiritual air.  So I end with Annie Dillard advising writers. “Assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?”

Yours for the pursuit of God in the company of friends, Dick Staub.

Among my most memorable Dick Staub interviews were those with Charlton Heston. We first met in Washington DC when he spoke at a lunch I attended. I needed to catch a flight and waited until he finished. I headed for a back exit, the same one he ducked into. As we reached the actual exit door alarms went off and a security guard approached. Recognizing Heston the guard waved him through…I quipped, “I’m with Moses.” Heston turned, laughed and waved me through with him. We introduced ourselves and a few months later we met in Chicago for an interview, then another and another. He was literate, articulate and a gentleman who loved words as evidenced by his comments in this reprise interview.

On this podcast host Dick Staub hosts a discussion with Nigel Goodwin on “The C.S. Lewis quotes that have shaped me and my thinking.” Nigel Goodwin is a British actor and founder of Genesis Arts an organization that encourages the artistic community in its quest to make good art to God’s glory.

Windrider Forum hosts young filmmakers and theologians in an exploration the films of Sundance. Today a discussion about the importance of Sundance in these endeavors. We feature Craig Detweiler author and director of “Reel Spirituality,” Lisa Swain a film producer and director of the communications film program at Biola University and Dr. Jim Spiegel, philosophy Professor from Taylor University.