When it comes to community and societal solutions to problems, there's an impulse to find the Answer™. There's a notion that, if only we can find the right fix to the problem, it will go away, permanently. The other side (and, frankly, it doesn't matter what side) doesn't have actual solutions -- they have "band-aids," tiny, meaningless fixes that aren't going to cause real change. 

Guest post written by Nicolas Chera. 

In which I cannot avoid my faith.

Today, I'm going to try to write the three to five hundred words I promised myself (and my website) I would produce every Friday, including the bad ones. They will exist, even if they aren't what anyone else wanted me to write about, even if no one reads them. I can only show up and do the work, press "save and publish," and be content in the showing up part. There's no making plants grow once they're in the ground, there's just tending the land and letting God do the thing. Writing, especially in the world we live in, works much the same way. 

There’s a house in all of us, a bedroom voice, a forward-facing foyer that is at once welcoming and utterly staged. There's a kitchen, a radio (on that seems determined to play Hamilton and the Freecreditreport.com jingle on repeat), photos, memories. And there is a basement. 

One thing I did not expect about my twenties is how many times I would have to break up with versions of myself. The fantasies of the future that are only possible to paint on the walls of Plato's cave, that evaporate when the light shifts, keep dissolving. From what I understand, this process is not going to stop any time soon.  

In my thesis presentation, I mentioned that I loved Marvel Comics, and that there is nothing too stupid to love. A professor challenged me on it (read: said "that's not true but it's a nice sentiment"). I think I'm writing this in response to that moment. See, nothing is a strong word, but there really isn't very much that's too stupid to love, even if for the moment. What Marvel taught me (however clumsily) was how to build a universe out of separate stories -- yes, there are better versions of that, but I learned the language I needed to love them through Thor/Wolverine crossovers. Sure, there are better books about fate/will... but for a lot of kids, The Fault in our Stars did the trick. 

My former thesis mentor and now regular part-time mentor met for coffee. I think I looked less tired than I did during my thesis (I am hoping to always look less tired than I did during my thesis). He advised me, as he did during my last meeting as his official master's candidate, to read more, to spend time breathing and doing what made my soul feel rested. Unlike the last time I got this advice, I've been trying to take it. Instead of writing everything, all the time, forever, I'm working on one project every month. If I want to do the same one for two months, I can, but at the moment I have the freedom to work on one project at a time, rather than keeping twenty thousand (okay, maybe five) spinning plates in the air. And I have to fundamentally change the way I look at productivity. 

1.  We still don't know what happens to Kylo Ren. 
2. You've never paid off a new car before. 
3. What does caviar with creme fresh taste like? More importantly, it will take some time to learn to like it, so...

What I read. 

During my early childhood, both of my parents were in full-time ministry, serving in our very small, and very poor, church. There wasn't enough money, and eventually they left ministry and got day jobs: Mom started a landscaping company and Dad worked in hotel maintenance and management, but not the fancy kind. We moved from lower class to lower middle class, and eventually into the beginnings of the middle of the middle class (though that period was very short and--for other reasons--unpleasant).

I recently read An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth by Col. Chris Hadfield, an actual real-life (retired) astronaut from Canada. I picked it up because I liked the cover. The title seemed interesting. Most importantly, it looked like it would be lightweight, a breezy read on my then-quest to get away from the heavy lifting my mind had been doing for months. I opened the first page, read a sentence, and decided the writing was lovely, and that I would give it a shot. 

Last week, I helped open a show up at Maui Preparatory Academy here on Maui (hence, no blog). There were a lot of things about that show that just didn't seem to want to go right, from venue to equipment failure to sickness that kept popping up through the young (and very affectionate) cast.

Whatever the Thing is for you, whether it is a movie or a collage or a poem or a song, you might as well make it. No one else is going to make it for you, and other people are out there making their thing (whatever it is). No, not everyone is born great at making stuff. Not everyone learns to trust their own ability to learn, to fail and then fail less badly, over and over, until comes together. 

Over the last few days, I've had a lot of opportunity and reason to think about the impact great books have had on my mind and heart. The trouble is that reading a great book and having a great reading experience are not always (entirely) the same, and in my mind, alongside the books that changed my life on their own merits, are moments of reading itself, or the environment in which I was reading made things different.

I read a lot (that may be a slight understatement, depending on what season of life I'm in). For a while, I was reading a little less and writing a lot more, and now I'm striking a balance between the two. In any case, I believe that reading is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves. I also think there are ways to read better, and lots of them. These are just a few of the ways I've found (after a lifetime of reading and loving it) that I can read better. 

My day jobs are as follows: 

• I work in a music store, where I play ukulele and guitar and help people fall in love with music. 
• I assist in a performing arts department.
• I teach an after school drama class. 

Guest post by Praise Ching. 

I've noticed a fascinating trend in recent films: a defiance of stated atheism.

In musical theatre, the characters don't know they are singing. The idea is that the heart of a person is captured in music and in movement to such an extent that their story is carried forward. Their emotions and thoughts are made manifest; there is no break between what is being said and what is being felt. In this sense, Neurosis is audio theatre.