I don't know how to start this. I want to apply to Seattle Pacific University for their M.F.A. program in creative writing. The program is geared towards the relationship between art and faith and the exploration of faith through art. If I got to go, we'd study the greats. Flannery O'Connor, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Emily Dickinson, Annie Dillard, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Dante, Augustine, all of those guys. The people who wrote serious canonized literature, not genre fiction with Bible verses tossed in for good measure, sitting unimportantly in the Christian Fiction aisle of your nearest Lifeway. I'm not sorry I said it; I don't care for that kind "art," and I would rather publish nothing in my lifetime than be a part of that industry. There. I said it. My teachers would be really compelling, faithful, and artistically driven and smart folks. Gregory Wolfe and Brett Lott for starters, two men who've already impressed me with their own work.

So what is my relationship with art and faith? What is the relationship between art and faith? Are they intrinsically related or are they better off without one another? What do I think of all of this?

I'm going to write a few blogs trying to riff my way to the answer. I have a four page essay due with my application discussing my journey with art and faith. Prayers please.