Pause & Ponder // Reading in May

by emma | Jun 15, 2016 | Books

In a way I’ve been searching all my life for better ways of seeing.

This was my first encounter with a phenomenon I would notice again and again, throughout my career: For all the care you put into artistry, visual polish frequently doesn’t matter if you are getting the story right.

When it comes to creative endeavours, the concept of zero failures is worse than useless. It is counterproductive.

John and I stressed that no one at Disney needed to wait for permission to come up with solutions. What is the point of hiring smart people, we asked, if you don’t empower them to fix what’s broken? For too long, a culture of fear had stymied those who wanted to step outside of Disney’s accepted protocols. That kind of timidity wasn’t going to make Disney Animation great.

Creativity, Inc – Ed Catmul

There is a way that God designed us to encounter Him: firsthand. God has always preferred and invited firsthand communication.

To truly embrace “this God” means that we must be rid not only of the things we worship as idols but also of the idol we have made and called “God.”

Secondhand Jesus – Glenn Packiam

Pause & Ponder // Reading in March

by emma | Apr 6, 2016 | Books

Success is not forever and failure isn’t fatal.

The Heart of a Leader – Ken Blanchard

Generosity is what keeps the things I own from owning me. In other words, the point of my generosity isn’t just to bless others; it’s also to liberate me.

“I work with college students, helping them to strive after Christ and his kingdom, especially within communities scarred by poverty, hopelessness and exclusion. One of my most daunting challenges is not helping students see that they can make a difference in these complicated situations; it is helping them to confront the messianic complex which convinces them that they are the solution.”

Overrated – Eugene Cho

Pierre Huyghe—a French artist—believed that “being an artist means asking questions about the reality of existence.” Huyghe’s work has followed this line, which led Time magazine to call him a “question maker.”

Let’s be the sort of people who, in the words of Stanley Hauerwas, “can risk being peaceful in a violent world, risk being kind in a competitive society, risk being faithful in an age of cynicism, risk being gentle among those who admire the tough, risk love when it may not be returned, because we have the confidence that in Christ we have been reborn into a new reality.”

Better: How Jesus Satisfies the Search for Meaning – Tim Chaddick and Craig Borlase