I’m really digging Leonard Sweet’s book SoulSalsa even though I’ve only read through two chapters so far.  There’s so much good stuff packed into it you have to process it slowly (which is difficult for me–a brainwashed consumer–even when it comes to reading!)  Here’s a paragraph that struck me in my recent reading:

You will suffer and die in life.  The question is whether or not you will suffer and die for a mission.  Or in the words of one of my favorite literary critics, Richard Ellman, "If we must suffer, it is better to create the world in which we suffer, and this is what heroes do spontaneously, artists do consciously, and all men do in their degree."

Sweet challenges us to be soul artists which would imply that we must consciously create the world in which we will inevitably suffer.  That signfies an activity on our part, not a passivity.  In other words, as Sweet so eloquently puts it, we must learn "how not to be pew-sitting toads."  He says that postmodern culture suffers from a content deficit and that soul artists must learn to infuse God’s meaning back into the daily moments of our beautful existence.

I don’t know about you, but I think I’m through playing Frogger!