Category Archives: Art
Just a Grasshopper Like Us
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This little story was written for our Chapter 3 Christmas Concert this week. I knew I’d be reading it out loud, and so it is written with that in mind. In Charles Dickens’ day, many people were illiterate. Novels were often read out loud in public squares – and were often written in in several pieces. A couple chapters at a time would be released in publication, crowds would gather, and a reader or orator would read the books aloud. Therefore, much of Dickens’ writing pays stylistic attention not only to the eye of the reader, but to the ear of the listener as well.
In other words, you write differently when you know it’s going to be read aloud. Just a Grasshopper Like Us was written to be read aloud. The punctuation is designed that way. Wording. Paragraph breaks.
Also, it’s unpolished. It was written in 15 minutes. I like it.
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Isaiah 40:22 (NLT)
God sits above the circle of the earth. The people below seem like grasshoppers to him! He spreads out the heavens like a curtain and makes his tent from them.
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As a grasshopper, I’ve seen a lot of crazy things. I’ve seen friends get stuck upside down on tall blades of grass. I’ve seen birds snatch family members. I’ve even seen crickets laugh and caterpillars sneeze. I’ve seen a lot of crazy things.
My name is Bob, by the way. Bob Hopper.
Out of all the crazy things I’ve seen though, I’ve never seen anything as crazy as when HE came into town. Yeah, we’d heard the stories about how his mom had gotten pregnant before she was married – which is a HUGE deal for us grasshoppers – and about how he was born unexpectedly while his parents were taking part in the Great Hopper Census of Green Leg County.
We’d heard bits and pieces of there being something special about him. Ya know, the usual “Grasshopper-Who-Would-Be-King” sort of deal. Then we didn’t hear much about him at all.
Well, there was that one time that my wife, Hilda – Hilda Hopper – had said his parents actually forgot about him for 3 days, leaving him behind at the big, annual Hopper Hoopla Party. I mean, really. How do you forget your nymph?!
That’s when rumors started that his parents were probably ‘grass-smokers.’ Another unfortunate and HUGE deal for us grasshoppers.
So we’d almost forgotten about him by the time he showed up again. He started giving little grasshopper speeches at First Church of The Maple Leaf and then at Insect Community Church – and sometimes he would just start talking nonsense out in the public fields and bushes.
He’d talk to us about the great dangers to the way we were living. He told us someday a swarm would come that would wipe us out if we kept on the way we were. He spoke passionately about an escape hatch that he knew about and only he could provide. He began describing a new way to live.
This, by the way, never goes over well with us grasshoppers.
We prefer life the way it always has been. And we’re not easily duped into believing silly things. One time, my cousin, Marvin – Marvin Hopper – started telling people that he was actually a Praying Mantis – just to make himself appear more spiritual – but this didn’t fool anyone. We didn’t believe Marvin and we weren’t about to believe this crazy grasshopper.
Even though some of his words were compelling, most of us weren’t buying in. But some hoppers were. Some hoppers were selling their roots and changing everything about their lives. These hoppers said if we didn’t change and believe, we’d be in trouble. And this is where it got really crazy.
This grasshopper started saying he was actually God.
We couldn’t take any more of it. A bunch of us brought him before Grasshopper Court and had him sentenced to a good beating. They brought the Dung Beetles in for this. They’re particularly good at beatings.
Long story short, this crazy Hopper was talking love, hope and a way out – up until the time they put him to death. Even more weird, some of the hoppers that’d been following him claimed to have seen him alive and well days later! They claimed this proved he wasn’t just a grasshopper, but the God he’d claimed to be.
But c’mon. How absurd would it be that God would make himself a grasshopper just like us – to show us the way out?? Crazy really.
Sometimes late at night though, when the Mrs’ legs start twitching and they startle me awake in our little nest, I start thinking about that grasshopper. I stare up in the sky at the stars and think.
I’m thinking tonight.
The stars are stretched out over us like a huge tree.
I feel smaller than normal.
I wonder – hypothetically speaking – if there was a God, how he’d even connect with us in this huge world, if he wanted to.
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I’m the Blue Cheetah
Call it a messiah complex gone mad, but my compulsion to save everyone in the world just went feline. Yes, feline.
When you’re in the business of saving people’s lives – ya know, like policemen, firemen, doctors, etc. – it’s easy to develop this complex. You start to think you were made to be a savior. But it’s only a matter of time before you realize that while you may have saved a small town from a burglar or an elderly couple from a burning home or a teenage boy from a gunshot wound, you can’t do much about saving their soul.
So that’s why you consider becoming a counselor or therapist or maybe even a pastor. Maybe then you can help save something deeper than nice hair, chiseled abs, or dentured smiles. But you soon discover the blurry line between helping people and trying to play “God” in their life. Even I wouldn’t want to assume the role of playing God.
No. I want to save people in a more unique way than someone in civil service – and yet more tangibly than someone in the clergy.
That’s when it hit me. I needed to become a real-life super hero.
Yeah. I know they don’t really exist. But I’m rich. I’m creative. I’m a little crazy. A little melancholy. A little adventurous.
I’m the Blue Cheetah.
Tea With McNair and Monkeys
I’m so glad I’m not a monkey. My friends would be so boring. And irritating. Especially, if they get flinging.
My friends are amazing. They do what monkeys can’t. They create.
I’ve got friends that are writing music, making beats, creating ministries, taking photographs, styling hair, making films, doing poetry readings, punk rocking, fashioning clothes, starting businesses, lighting stage environments, building sets, acting, singing, drawing, designing, architecting, orchestrating, and writing novels and articles and devotional books.
Check out an old friend and huge creative/spiritual influencer on my life, McNair Wilson (his Tea With McNair blog is priceless!). McNair recently wrote about us and monkeys:
“While you and I will most certainly become frustrated while making a simple sketch with pencil, brush, guitar or keyboard, the monkey will pick, peel, and masticate thinking only of whence cometh her next banana.
We were given (nay, created with) a particularly expansive tool box—filled with gifts, and dreams, and a few extra genes. We are—each of us—magical and unique to the animal world.
Let us enjoy our ape, deer, dog, puppy, guppy, and winged neighbors. Let us protect them as we can. But we must create, invent, dream. Creativity is in the human DNA. It is who we were made to be.”
For a healthy injection of creativity and inspiration… go grab some Tea With McNair. And make sure you grab some with your Creator too.
Check Out Artist/Designer/Photographer/Friend NICK DONNER
He was one of the most solid volunteer leaders I’ve had work with me in youth ministry.
He was my roommate before I was married.
He is a phenomenal musician – artist – designer – photographer.
He is an amazing cook.
He has nice hair.
And he just might be one of the best examples of Jesus that I’ve had on a peer level.
His name is Nick Donner. And if you want to be inspired… or need some design/photography work done for you, I recommend him sooooo highly!
CHECK HIM AND HIS WORK OUT, FOR STARTERS, AT http://nicholasdonner.blogspot.com/ .
Thanks, Nick, for your friendship. Thanks for the driving me down to my mom’s the day I lost my dad. Thanks for your work… All of that is inspirational!
Ryan Axtell is a Must-Listen
I had the privilege of working with Ryan at Cornerstone in Chandler, AZ. He’s a first class musician, song writer, worship leader, ministry leader, Christ follower, and friend. Seriously. This new album of his comes from an incredibly difficult roller coaster of a year – and we’re all better for it. Go check him and his stuff out at http://ryanaxtell.com.
Phil Wickham at Grace Baptist Tonight
It was one of those nights. The Spirit, thick. Jesus, closer than your breath. Father, hands feeling stronger than normal. Tonight all this God-work poured out through Phil Wickham and his band in one of the most worshipful nights I’ve had in a long time. Maybe ever.
There are some guys who are ridiculously talented. Like Phil. And then there are guys who are both ridiculously talented and ridiculously anointed by God. Again, like Phil Wickham.
I wished for everyone I knew to be in that room because some of Heaven met earth at Grace tonight. I watched hurting people be encouraged back into safety tonight. I watched dreams get ignited tonight. I watched people let go tonight. I felt all of those things for myself tonight.
Go buy his album, Heaven and Earth, when it comes out in November at http://www.philwickham.com. God’s going to continue to lead us into His presence through the creativity and inspiration poured out through this guy for a long time, I hope. Going to bed tonight moved with the power of God and the power of worship and the power in the coming of Heaven. Thanks, Phil, for carrying us to that power tonight.
