Jim Kast-Keat is a writer, speaker, pastor, and pathological optimist. Congratulations on finding his blog. Ten points for you. To find out more, head over to jimkastkeat.com and start exploring.
Occasional Thoughts
I'm always thinking, and sometimes I'm even writing.
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You find whatever you're looking for.
In one of his many amazing books, Rabbi Lawrence Kushner wrote the simple words that title this post: you find whatever you're looking for.
When you're thinking about buying a certain car, you see it everywhere. When you're infatuated with a new concept, an additional nuance sits around every corner. If you're looking for love, you'll find it everywhere. If you're looking for hate, you'll find that too.Because you find whatever you're looking for.I am convinced that a person who is looking for God - seeking the divine in the daily - will find it. God is tucked under every rock, simmering in every warm drink, and moving through every movement and sound. As the conniving patriarch once said, "God was in this place and I, I did not know." If you're looking for God, you can find God. Because God is all around us, in the everyday and mundane as much as the miraculous and extraordinary.Each month I am going to select a different object. Something ordinary and all around us, only unnoticed because I'm not looking for it. And I'm going to take pictures of it, posting them on my new photo site. As I intentionally look for these everyday objects filling the backdrop behind me, I will remind myself that God is just as present, and too often just as overlooked.As I focus on a different object each month, my underlying focus will always be the same: to find that which is always and already here.Great Writing
George Orwell, author of 1984 and Animal Farm, used six simple questions to focus his writing. I am convinced they could be utilized for all forms of communication and art (writing, speaking, design, etc.).
- What am I trying to say?
- What words will express it?
- What image or idiom will make it clearer?
- Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?
- Could I put it more shortly?
- Have I said anything that is avoidable ugly?
For a handful of more great writing tips, check out what else Orwell and five other authors have to say.Ready, set, write.It's a series of moments.
"I don't know what 'happy ending' is. Life isn't about ending, is it? It's a series of moments. And, um, it's like, if you turn the camera off, it's not the ending, is it? I'm still here; my life's not over."
Tim Canterbury utters these words into the camera in his last cut shot of the series finale of The Office.And it's true, life is not about ending. Life is a series of moments. It's a flipbook, made up of endless images, always coming from one to another to another to another.In some ways there is no such thing as "the present." How long does "the present" last? One second? But that can be split into two half seconds. Which can be split into two quarter seconds. And so on until "the present" is lost between the ever decreasing time of the past and the future. "The present" is the space between the pages on the never ending flipbook called life.But in other ways "the present" is all that exists. This moment, this page is all that is, all that ever is. The past is nothing but recollection and the future is nothing but anticipation. They both exist as thought, nothing more. But "the present" happens now and therefore truly is. "The present" is this page, however fleeting it lasts before it turns to the next.I heard Don Miller once talk about the moment he realized that the world existed for more than him. He was in middle school and he and his friend were walking home. As they parted ways Don realized, for the first time, that his friend's life would keep happening, even as Don walked away from it. Life doesn't have to happen to me in order for it to continue happening. Just as Tim from The Office said, "if you turn the camera off, it's not the ending."This is why stories are so powerful as they allow us to glimpse at the turning pages of someone else's flipbook. Whether we hear it or read it or watch it, we enter their story, connect with their emotion, and vicariously discover life bigger than our own.In this present moment, you are alive. As we share and tell stories with the people around us, we remember and we anticipate the moments behind us and before us. But in it all, each moment exists here and now and never again. Each moment leading to another and another and another. "I'm still here; my life's not over."Beautiful.
Last weekend Jes and I escaped to Chicago (that's what these pictures are from). And this weekend she's back in our beloved city for an RCA conference while I remain in overcast West Michigan.In honor of her second weekend in the company of a beautiful skyline, here are a few pictures of a beautiful face.
My New Hobby.
Brace yourself for an influx of photos.And if all things work as they hoped, they should all land at www.flickr.com/photos/jimkastkeat for your picture viewing pleasure.Enjoy.
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About Jim Kast-Keat
Jim Kast-Keat is a writer, speaker, pastor, and pathological optimist. Congratulations on finding his blog. Ten points for you. To find out more, head over to 
