Latest posts from Aaron Zavala
There really is nothing like live music. Second best thing to being there in-person is getting to watch the video of the live takes. Loving Cory Wong's and Joshua Redman's live recording of On A Random Tuesday: Live At The Blue Note ( Apple Music ). You can watch the great live recording of it at the link below. On A Random Tuesday: Live At The Blue Note…
I recently watched mythologist and storyteller Martin Shaw speak with Matt Fradd about myths, fairy tales, and faith. I loved the conversation, and hope to read Martin's latest book, Liturgies of the Wild . Myth is a wild way of telling the truth. - Martin Shaw Shaw mentions that myth is an ocean dealing with cosmic implications of reality, while fairy tales are "little tributaries of myth that…
Read through Wendell Berry’s “Think Little” essay a couple of days ago. He published this essay way back in 1969, but his encouragement and advice to live against the consumeristic age are evergreen: Odd as I am sure it will appear to some, I can think of no better form of personal involvement in the cure of the environment than that of gardening. A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing…
Writing is thinking. Deep thinking apart from writing, however, is impoverished thinking. When you don’t know what to write – write about that. You’ll pick up the thread again somewhere along the way. Write yourself into a new way of thinking.
Over 4th of July weekend, I introduced my son to the movie An American Tail . He loved it! (even though those wave monsters and that machine mouse are still pretty scary…) Didn’t realize until we watched it again that it was produced by Steven Spielberg and the film score was composed by James Horner! Or that Christopher Plummer (the dad in Sound of Music, and also in Knives Out!) voiced the dopey…
I just finished Malcolm Guite's Galahad and the Grail is this morning. I was so moved by the beauty of the ending, the way it weaves its way with the beginning lines of the prologue: "Poet, take up the tale!" Incredibly well-done. Malcolm shares this gift of a modern classic with us through his knowledge as a scholar, his heart as a priest, told with all his skill as a poet. I'm very much looking…
Working my way through The Last Battle now by C.S. Lewis, the seventh and final book in the Chronicles of Narnia series. So good. I had mentioned recently how The Silver Chair might be my favorite of the series, but going through this one makes me think this is the best of the lot. The way Lewis mingles hope and devastation together in this story is palpable. Also, it must have been many years…
Loving Galahad and the Grail by Malcolm Guite . It's the first of four forthcoming volumes of a new epic poetic Arthuriad, and this first volume is beautiful – both the story and poetry, the incredible illustrations by Stephen Crotts, and the actual physical book itself. Thankful for the incredible gift Malcolm Guite is to the world of literary art.
It is a bit sad to me to watch the ending of the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Tonight will be his final show. Of all the current late show hosts, he’s the one I have found to be the classiest and wittiest. Watching David Letterman and Colbert together from last week’s show made me laugh a lot! Excited for what he is doing next – writing a Lord of the Rings movie directed by Peter Jackson . Of…
Finished two books this week! The first is C.S. Lewis’ The Voyage of the Dawn Treader . The Chronicles of Narnia – The Voyage of the Dawn Treader It had been some years since I last visited the world of Narnia. This one is one of my favorites from the series. I love the sea voyage (reminded me of Odysseus’ sea-faring adventures in the Odyssey), Eustace’ transformation and reformation, meeting an…
My reading break ended last Thursday. This was part of the week-4 tasks in The Artist's Way . Basically, I didn't read any blog posts, articles, personal emails or any other social media, and didn't read any books. Here are a handful of things I learned during that down time. I have more “free time” available to me than I realize I want to distract myself with social media… Why is that? When I…
Rich Mullins on where his songs come from : My songs are not particularly inspired. The Scriptures were inspired; my songs are provoked. I love this idea of songs, or any art, being provoked from us. When I encounter the reality of God's grandeur , what is provoked out of me? Songs, poetry... love? I hope for more of all of the above.
A couple of weeks ago, my wife Tiffany and I visited the LBJ National Grasslands as part of a small group of people interested in “wildflowering.” We like learning about flowers, but we didn’t know that “wilderflowering” was a verb until this trip. I thought this trip was going to be more of humdrum kind of experience. Just hike up and down trails, looking at fields of lots of pretty flowers…
Part of this week's practices of The Artist's Way is to partake in a "reading deprivation." I am going to work on being with my own thoughts throughout the day instead of my normal daily habit of reading a book, a selection of articles, or any other kind of social media post. This will be a good challenge. I'm looking at it this way: whatever I want to read, I need to write. So I may still share…
"The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention." – Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way