Film Review: Beasts of the Southern Wild

Posted by Michael. If you find yourself in a mood for something new and off the beaten path with regards to a movie, something less story driven, but still powerful,  I recommend Beasts of the Southern Wild. Beasts of the Southern Wild does not come equipped with readily identified good guys and bad guys. There […]

Efficiency Without Enjoyment

Posted by Michael. When Thomas Merton was asked what he thought the leading spiritual disease of our time was, he thought for a moment, and then answered, “Efficiency”. Most of us are juggling 527 things to accomplish each and every day, and being as efficient as possible is the nirvana we seek. So, we carefully […]

The Drive to Perform

My drive to define myself by my performance seems insatiable. I know that this isn’t the way I was created to operate. I know that I am more than what I do. I know that it’s dangerous to place something as important as my self-worth in something as fragile and unpredictable as performance. I know […]

The Essentials: Westerns (Part 2)

The Searchers (1956) This movie isn’t just a classic western, it’s one of my selections for the top 10 greatest movies of all time.  The story is great, but try to notice the cinematography that is employed along the way. Watch for the way John Ford frames his shots, and the emotional intensity that it […]

The Essentials: Westerns (Part 1)

Posted by Tony and Michael Ok, I know that the Western genre seems an odd place to start, but it’s the place that Tony and I agreed on quickly and rather easily, also it’s a personal favorite of mine…..so back-off!!!!! Here are the movies that we feel are essential to any lover of cinema who […]

The Essentials

Posted by Michael Tony and I love movies. Ok, to be honest we are probably a bit obsessive. Between the two of us we have seen a terrifying amount of movies, including a majority of the American Film Institute’s top 100 movies of all time. What we have come to realize is that there are […]

Getting There

Posted by Michael I guess I’ve always lived with a “getting there” mentality. I’ve worked hard with the thought that this is sure going to pay off when I “get there”. I’m not sure when this started or for that matter where or what exactly, “there” is. In some ways, “there” exists in my mind […]

If You Were In Charleston…

Michael here… If you were in Charleston, then I would remind you of one of your most important jobs upon entering any city, finding a good bakery and coffee shop. You can tell a lot about a town by how seriously they take their coffee and pastries. Charleston is no different, and although there are […]

The Aggravation of Love

God loves you. Probably the most used phrase in all of Christian history, and for good reason. You could say that that tiny phrase is one of the irreducible cores of all of Scripture. God loves you. But like most phrases, when it’s been used enough, it begins to lose it’s meaning. If God loves […]

Seeing is Believing

Tony here:I was driving by a church recently and the sign out front had the quote from John 20:8…”he saw and believed.” It started me thinking about the image that we, as Christians, project to a world that desperately needs to believe. Benjamin Franklin is quoted as saying “Believe none of what you hear and […]