Jason Boyett

What I’m currently reading…

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 14:55:24 -0500

9 Thumbs (Episode 51)

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 14:50:00 -0500

In Episode 51, we discuss the floorplans of non-existent TV show homes, the film Mud and how it may be the apex of Matthew McConaughey’s career, the Bachelor-parody web series Burning Love, the short film “It’s Not About the Nail,” and whether Ashley Judd had a personal sweat spritzer on the set of A Time to Kill.

Direct download this episode.

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My latest pop-culture column at A Deeper Story posted on Monday,...

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 10:49:32 -0500

My latest pop-culture column at A Deeper Story posted on Monday, about the TV series Longmire, a Lumineers concert, and something the singer/songwriter Josh Ritter does at his shows. In it, I admit that, sometimes, I just need to back away and shut up.

Excerpt:

There have been times when I relished this back-and-forth exchange of ideas. I got involved. I spouted my opinion. I took sides and linked up and stepped into the sound and fury.

But more than ever, when it feels like too many things are happening, I find myself just wanting to step away, to do myself a favor.

Read the full piece here…

9 Thumbs (Episode 50)

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:44:00 -0500

Hey, look! Our 50th episode! In this one, bewildered by the fact that we’ve actually made it this far in a regular podcast, we decided to revisit past “likes” and report on them in a double-like scenario. So we discuss the final season of The Office, engage in a spoilery discussion of Gone Girl, and talk The Amazing Race, Scrivener writing software, music, and lots more.

Direct download this episode.

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9 Thumbs (Episode 49)

Tue, 14 May 2013 10:35:53 -0500

Episode 49 includes a discussion about the new fully digital generation, our online selves, behind-the-scenes pics of Empire Strikes Back, Princess Leia in a gold bikini, the novel Warm Bodies, a new documentary about the magician Ricky Jay, and the webcast “So Totally Relidge!” A fun episode.

Direct download this episode.

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My latest pop-culture column at A Deeper Story landed yesterday,...

Wed, 08 May 2013 15:00:28 -0500

My latest pop-culture column at A Deeper Story landed yesterday, about my passion for music and how (thankfully) it’s slowly being absorbed my kids. Also some stuff about my parents’ musical tastes, the Rocky soundtrack, feeding expensive cheeses to preschoolers, and why Wil Wheaton thinks it’s awesome to be a nerd.

Excerpt:

Ours is a world that often seems cynical, detached, and passionless. Ours is a world that needs more nerds. And we need more parents to pass along their nerdery to their kids. I can think of few things more life-giving than saying, “this is something I love and I want you to love it, too.”

Read the full piece here…

Pocket Guide to the Bible Online Garage Sale

Tue, 07 May 2013 10:27:02 -0500

Back in May of 2008, a truck bearing four pallets and a couple thousand pounds of freight rolled into Amarillo. On that truck were all the not-yet-sold copies of Pocket Guide to the Bible that still existed in the world. Nine-thousand and fifty-three of them, to be exact.

I owned them all. The reason why had to do with publishing rights, my original publisher, a new publisher, and a series relaunch. In short, I had to buy a warehouse full of books in order to move Pocket Guide to the Bible from Relevant to Jossey-Bass.

As of May 2013, I’m down to my last 1,000 books. I’ve sold a lot of individual books at speaking engagements, conferences, and other events. I’ve sold boxes upon boxes to churches who use them for giveaways, as gifts for graduates, or as gifts for new members and guests. I’m currently using about 32 of them stacked up into makeshift monitor stands for my work and home computers, respectively.

Last week I lost the free storage space where I’d been keeping these remaining boxes, so a bunch of friends schemed with my wife to kick off an online garage sale yesterday to help me move these last few boxes of books.

I’d love to get this storage burden and/or fire hazard off my shoulders, so I think this is an amazing idea. (And I think my friends are awesome.)

So I’ve got an online store. Head to jasonboyett.bigcartel.com to buy an individual copy of Pocket Guide to the Bible for $4 (plus shipping) or a box of 48 copies for $48 (plus shipping)—that’s a stack of 48 books in the photo up top.

Yes, I’m selling these for $1 a book, all signed personally by me. Or you can get them at Amazon for $10.21, unsigned. Your call.

Tell your friends. We’ve sold 500 since yesterday so they’re going fast…

Big thanks to Zack, Joy, Ed, Tamara, Sharideth, Preston, Mike, and so many others who are spreading the word and making this happen. (And especially to my superhero wife, Aimee, who’s doing much of the behind-the-scenes administrative work…including hauls of 33-lb. boxes to the post office.)

9 Thumbs (Episode 48)

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:19:04 -0500

I don’t appear in our latest episode, but that’s probably why it’s one of our most epic ones yet. Rob Stennett and Joy Bennett are joined by special guest Elizabeth Esther for a discussion of nine controversial topics, from Huck Finn to Rob Bell to “smokin’ hot wives.” It earned an “explicit” rating and is already a classic. Enjoy.

Direct download this episode.

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"Doubt is a thing which many Christians see as opposing their faith. Many have fought it and its..."

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:57:44 -0500

“

Doubt is a thing which many Christians see as opposing their faith. Many have fought it and its prevalence in the modern minds of man….Many people react negatively towards any feelings of doubt that they may have, fearing that this doubt means that they aren’t fully committed to God.

However, this fear of doubt is dreadfully dangerous. Not every man who doubts his faith loses it. And if they look at most human lives, they’ll find that if one doesn’t doubt, then one isn’t human. It is a necessary idea for any believer, for it acts as the catalyst and tool for a man or woman to grow.

”

- (From Christopher Hutton’s excellent blog post “Skepticism for Christianity”)

9 Thumbs (Episode 47)

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 13:49:01 -0500

Our latest episode, featuring me, Rob Stennett, and Joy Bennett. We discuss the Dove “Sketch Artist” campaign, Patton Oswalt’s epic Parks & Rec filibuster, the Man of Steel trailer, Catching Fire, the Neti Pot, and more. (That’s right: I said the Neti Pot.)

Direct download this episode.

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9 Thumbs (Episode 46)

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 10:58:24 -0500

Our latest episode, featuring me, Rob Stennett, and Joy Bennett. We discuss the passing of Roger Ebert, The Lone Bellow, House of Cards, the art of North Korea, Jurassic Park 3D, our favorite children’s books, and more.

Direct download this episode.

All the links here. Subscribe to the podcast here.

Brennan Manning died last Friday, April 12, 2013. I say this...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:24:46 -0500

Brennan Manning died last Friday, April 12, 2013. I say this with no hyperbole at all: no person on earth impacted my faith and theology more than Brennan Francis Xavier Manning. And as curious as it may sound, his impact on my faith was both positive and negative.

Positive because his teaching about grace blew my conservative-fundamentalist mind at a time when it needed to be blown. Upon reading The Ragamuffin Gospel at the recommendation of Rich Mullins, I knew I would never be the same.

Negative because his teaching sent me on a path of discovery and reading outside my narrow Southern Baptist faith tradition. That’s always dangerous. And the questions that make my relationship to Christian faith today a very tenuous one are the direct result of the journey I began back then when I dug into Manning…and then dug into his theological influences. I read footnotes. I followed suggestions. I couldn’t stop reading.

To expand, here’s an excerpt from an essay I’ve written for inclusion in a book about fatherhood, scheduled to release in 2014:

—————

Though rich and loving, my childhood faith tradition was also narrow. In my early twenties, I set out from that base camp to explore the religious world beyond it. My interest in the musician Rich Mullins introduced me to the contemplative Catholicism of Brennan Manning. Manning’s writing on grace, so helpful to undo the restrictive legalism of my youth, brought me to writers like Henri Nouwen and Frederick Buechner. From there, I found my way to John Polkinghorne, N. T. Wright, and Robert Farrar Capon, and then Marcus Borg, Jaroslav Pelikan, Bart Ehrman. It’s a lengthy list.

The weight of this new knowledge began to press against my beliefs. Small imperfections grew into larger flaws. Cracks spread through the foundation, one after another until I looked down, years later, and saw that my faith was mostly rubble. My bedrock devotion to a literal understanding of the Bible crumbled into a more contextualized reading of Scripture. I love the Bible, but I read it as an ancient collection of documents that owe more to their human authors than the Holy Spirit’s dictation. I spent the first two decades of my life fearing hell, and have spent the last two decades wondering if I believe in it at all. I no longer doubt my salvation; today I doubt whether God exists.

—————

Brennan Manning saved my faith. Brennan Manning started me on the road to dismantling my faith. I love him for both of those things.

9 Thumbs (Episode 45)

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:40:25 -0500

Our latest episode, featuring me, Joy Bennett, and special guest Sharideth Smith. We discuss The Features, First Aid Kit, Top Gear, wireless speakers, anti-social media blocking software, Afrin nasal spray, and more.

All the links here. Subscribe to the podcast here.

I’ve got a new Deeper Story column up today, about the big...

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 16:27:01 -0500

I’ve got a new Deeper Story column up today, about the big conniption thrown when Marcus Mumford stated in Rolling Stone that he doesn’t really want to label himself a Christian.

In the piece, I try to examine why Christians put so much stock in celebrities who share their beliefs, and what it might say about our own faith. Also I tiptoe around the Old Testament story of Naaman.

We’re so obsessed with the big thing (or person) we forget that faith is more often about the small things (or people).

Read the whole piece here, and feel free to leave a comment (there or here).

9 Thumbs Episode 44

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 11:27:25 -0500

Last weekend I spoke at the Killer Tribes conference in Atlanta, where I hung out with former 9 Thumbs host Matthew Paul Turner, new host Joy Bennett, recent guest host Kristen Howerton, our mutual podcaster buddy Sharideth Smith, and lots of other great friends. Joy and I took advantage of everyone’s proximity to do an interview with Kristen and Sharideth about blogging and writing. Because we pursue awesomeness, we recorded it in a children’s Sunday School room in a church basement.

My wife, Aimee, took this photo:

Yes, those are some of the “fruits of the Spirit” painted on the wall behind us.

Direct download this episode.

"One Good Phrase" Guest Post for Micha Boyett

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 11:13:22 -0500

My sister, Micha, is a fantastic blogger and poet and just signed a two-book deal with Worthy Publishing.

Yesterday, she asked me to guest-post on her blog as part of her “One Good Phrase” series (for which I designed the graphic, above, btw). The series asks contributors to describe a phrase that has wormed its way into your life, repeating and repeating enough that it has become a part of you.

I chose “What song would you like to sing?” It’s a question I ask my kids every night. We sing silly, made-up songs together nightly before bed. It’s our ritual.

In fact, it has been our ritual since they were toddlers. They’re not toddlers now, but we still do it. An excerpt:

I still offer them a song every night, just because I can. Because they’ll still let me. Because I know this time is fleeting. Because I know one day they’ll decide they’re too old to sing with Dad.

Check out the full post here—don’t miss the video of us singing at the end!—and be sure to dig through the other posts in the series while you’re there.

Gallery-Wrapped Photo Canvas Wall Collage

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 14:47:09 -0500

Here’s a design-ey something we recently put together.

We have a pretty big living room with vaulted, sloped ceilings, which means we’ve always had one wall that was just really, really big. We’ve tried a variety of things to fill the space without a lot of success.

Then we got a Groupon offer with a ridiculous discount for gallery-wrapped photos on canvas. A 16x20-in, 1.5-in. thick canvas—usually $127—for a third that price. So we bought several and decided to wedge them all together on the wall to make a giant collage (with a larger 20x30-in. canvas in the middle).

Thanks, Ty Pennington!

We’ve tried these gallery-wrapped canvas Groupon deals before using color photos and have generally been disappointed. The colors in the final product always ended up way too saturated. As in: we all had magenta-to-purple lips. (In real life, we have lips of lovely, and quite average, pinkness.)

So this time we decided to take some of our favorite family photos—some old, some more recent—and turn them all black and white. Surely we wouldn’t end up purple-lipped this way.

Using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop (I’m a designer), we figured out our favorite arrangement of the photos and their orientation. I made sure to increase the contrast once we desaturated them so they weren’t too grayed out.

We were pleased with the results from Canvas on Demand. Excellent printing. (Finally.)

It took a lot of measuring and at least a couple of readjustments, but we finally got all the canvasses in place on the wall. This is harder than you’d think when they’re supposed to all touch.

We’re very happy with the end result. It fills up the wall, the black-and-white offers a good contrast with the neutral paint job, and it’s pretty eye-catching. Even better, it was far less expensive than it could have been.

What I’m currently reading… Quiet: The Power of...

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 14:15:54 -0500

What I’m currently reading… Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, by Susan Cain.

From p. 63:

“Studies have shown that, indeed, introverts are more likely than extroverts to express intimate facts about themselves online that their family and friends would be surprised to read, to say that they can express the ‘real me’ online, and to spend more time in certain kinds of online discussions. They welcome the chance to communicate digitally. The same person who would never raise his hand in a lecture hall of two hundred people might blog to two thousand, or two million, without thinking twice. The same person who finds it difficult to introduce himself to strangers might establish a presence online and then extend these relationships into the real world.”

This is so me, it’s ridiculous. To the chagrin of my family and IRL friends, I’ve always found it way easier to be transparent online rather than in the flesh. And have always thought that was a really peculiar thing. I guess I’m not so strange after all.

I have a new writing gig! My friends at Deeper Story have asked...

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 09:00:49 -0500

I have a new writing gig! My friends at Deeper Story have asked me to contribute a monthly column on faith and popular culture. It will usually run on the first Tuesday of the month.

The introductory post, about Jennifer Lawrence, the film Silver Linings Playbook, and the importance of truth-telling, landed yesterday.

If you were wondering, the title of the column comes from one of Flannery O’Connor’s letters in The Habit of Being: “I can with one eye squinted take it all as a blessing.” (I love Flannery O’Connor.)

9 Thumbs (Episode 32)

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 06:23:00 -0500

Our latest episode isn’t new. It’s a rerun of Episode #32, because I got too busy last week and couldn’t record. This one published right after the giant Powerball Lottery payout several months ago, so we asked ourselves what would be our “likes” if we suddenly had millions of dollars to spend. It’s our high-rollers episode!

All the links here. Subscribe to the podcast here.