The Big Story

How many times do you get to teach a class that involves showing excerpts from the Tolkien documentaries on the Lord of the Rings extended edition DVDs? If you're me this semester... lots! I want to post more about this later, but wanted to share that this week in the 20th Century Myth class I've gotten to share some of my personal ideas about myth, story and Christian perspectives/ uses of literature. It is beyond rewarding - especially when nearly every day our conversations spill out the door of the classroom, and I find myself walking down the hall talking about why I think Jesus so often used parables, how we learn and live by stories, and the necessity of incarnative experience in Christian faith (okay, haven't quite voiced that last one yet, but am getting there!).

Stay tuned, maybe you'll get a taste of my own manifesto on faith and literature, and why it's such a driving force in my life. It's so fun to be able to formulate and synthesize the ideas that have been pooling in my head from a (short) lifetime of study and reading, and to actually see those connecting with the lives of students.