Franny and Zooey X Moana

I was looking back through an older notebook earlier and stopped at this double-page spread. One of the things I love about keeping a Bullet Journal is the way that it is a container for everything — it works as a diary, organiser, log, sketchbook, and a place for longer pieces of note-taking, which I normally do as sketch notes (a la @MikeRohde.) I love the serendipity that comes from random things appearing next to each other on the pages, for no other reason than that was the next blank page available. (Don’t worry, an index helps me to find things when I need to.)

On the left are some quotes from JD Salinger’s Franny and Zooey, a spiritual classic, as well as a great novel. I haven’t come across anything else that has helped me so much to learn that God is all around, all the time, in the ordinary stuff of life.

Next to it is a sketch note of some things that stuck me from the film Moana. I love the idea of the ocean seeking out this child to enable her community to discover their deep founding tradition, which had become lost over generations. As someone who works to help an established church denomination to thrive, this is an insight to hold on to.

And then there’s the extra layer of meaning that comes by mashing them up. When you take the spiritual insights of Franny and Zooey, like, ”There are nice things in the world - and I mean nice things. We’re all such morons to get so sidetracked.” And the spiritual insights of Moana, such as the pile of stones representing generations of unhelpful tradition. And when you mash them up you get: “What church traditions have we been dutifully and moronically stacking up that sidetrack us so we miss out on the presence of God in the rest of the world?”

Now there’s a question.