Tim Keller - to fall in love

Tim Keller describes a "Christian vision for marriage" and what it means to fall in love.

It is to look at another person and get a glimpse of the person God is creating and to say, 'I see who God is making you, and it excites me! I want to be part of that. I want to partner with you and God in the journey you are taking to his throne. And when we get there, I will look at your magnificence and say, '"I always knew you could be like this. I got glimpses of it on earth, but now look at you!'"

...Romance, sex, laughter and plain fun are the by-products of this process of sanctification, refinement, glorification. Those things are important, but they can't keep the marriage going through years and years of ordinary life. What keeps the marriage going is your commitment to your spouse's holiness. You're comitted to his or her beauty. You're committed to his greatness and perfection. You're committed to her honesty and passion for the things of God. That's your job as a spouse. Any lesser goal than that, any smaller purpose, and you're just playing at being married.

The Meaning of Marriage

Elvira...Alvin...Elle...Vinabags?

Moments spent with this girl are like snapshots in time. I look back at this year of transition--moments spent in my room complaining about the nebulous cloud of life planning always hanging over our heads--moments spent drinking out of hot beverages in sunny French cafes and dreaming about what's next. All of the journey's most important stops and pitfalls can be traced by remembering our conversations via her little visits here and there. Always poetic, always honest, sometimes glamorous (but mostly ridiculous), she's got a wide soul and a deep heart and sucks the marrow out of everything.

Now she's off to London and Mumbai, and I'm going to miss her very much.

<3 you Alvin.

McKee's Quotes on Story

“When talented people write badly, it's generally for one of two reasons: Either they're blinded by an idea they feel compelled to prove of they're driven by an emotion they must express. When talented people write well, it is generally for this reason: They're moved by a desire to touch the audience.”

“Beyond imagination and insight, the most important component of talent is perseverance—the will to write and rewrite in pursuit of perfection. Therefore, when inspiration sparks the desire to write, the artist immediately asks: Is this idea so fascinating, so rich in possibility, that I want to spend months, perhaps years, of my life in pursuit of its fulfillment? Is this concept so exciting that I will get up each morning with the hunger to write? Will this inspiration compel me to sacrifice all of life's other pleasures in my quest to perfect its telling? If the answer is no, find another idea. Talent and time are a writer's only assets. Why give your life to an idea that's not worth your life?”

“Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact.”

"...While it's true that the unexamined life is not worth living, it's also true that the unlived life isn't worth examining.”

Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth

Say not the struggle nought availeth,
The labor and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in the smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in the main.

And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward look, the land is bright.

-Arthur Hugh Clough