By Mariah Secrest In the first installment of the Unlikely Beauty series, we looked at the work that CTI Music Ministries is doing worldwidestretching life and beauty through the arts to the furthest and sometimes remotest corners of the earth. But often we dont need to look very far to find a need for hope. … Continue reading Unlikely Beauty, Part 2: Arts for Life
By Josh Casper Her name means Imagination. She is God’s. She is beautiful. She has known such great pain and I have no way to relate. We find her broken on the concrete, which resembles her state of mind. Her ankle, broken open. Exposing bone, broken flesh, broken body. A site I have seen too … Continue reading Imagination: A woman in Kolkata, India
By Leah Anderson I choose. I don’t always feel You, but I choose You. I can’t always see You, but I choose You. I don’t fully understand You, but I choose You. I can’t comprehend You, but I choose You. Sometimes all I feel, see, understand and comprehend is what is in front of me, … Continue reading Poem: The Choice
By Scott Budzar The most impressionable moments in my life that leave me in a place of striving for humility and seeking to honor the words of our God in terms of “laboring for love and unity” have come from my wife and children. My eight year-old daughter wrote this poem below just a few … Continue reading Peace Is More Than Just a Difference
By Brenda Matyis Hurt it hurts not to be loved, her words tripped, then slipped through the phone… then land like a stone on my heart i have nothing can’t fix this… all i have are sleepless nights where i whisper her name in the dark and hope that somehow it will ignite, take flight … Continue reading Hurt: A poem about love and grace
By Mariah Secrest If you and I were to sit down to coffee together, you would quickly learn that my two loves (besides coffee, which makes three) are music and philosophy. File away the part about music for now; I’ll get back to it. For now I want to give a brief sketch of a … Continue reading Wasteful Love: Where Beauty and Social Justice Meet
By Karen Swank when You call me home let me be found neither hiding in a quiet place plumping the pillow on which i sit nor standing in a spotlight before adoring masses not collecting accolades with false humility but rather let me be found kneeling at the edge of the pit arms covered with … Continue reading Ending: A poem on dying
By Mariah Secrest Music runs in my family. One of my most random tidbits that I usually reserve for the icebreaker “two truths and a lie” is that my great-uncle sang with Elvis’ band (true). I have cousins and uncles who have tried their hand at the music industry, my parents were in a band … Continue reading Art and Reason: Total opposites?
By Mariah Secrest After a couple years of living a normal suburban life, I’m starting to acclimate. I’m finding I enjoy going to work, studying, hanging out with friends, and taking care of my place. But then I do something like read a travel journal of Switchfoot’s trip to caste-controlled India and in a sad … Continue reading The Beauty of God: Like Clutching a Slippery Fish
By Christy Tennant Marginalized. Subverted. Uninvited. These are some of the words that describe how many artists feel in mainstream evangelicalism today. The divide between the church and the arts has been expanding over the last century. Gone, it seems, are the days of The Church championing such culture-defining artists as Michelangelo, Donatello, and DaVinci. … Continue reading International Arts Movement Seeks to Reconcile Art and Faith Communities