Lumination holds writing contests, students can win prizes

Interested in writing?  Want to be heard?  Want to win a $25 iTunes gift card?  Sign up for the Christmas holiday story contest!Write a story over the Christmas break – reviews, features, news stories, short stories (fiction), columns – you decide! To enter your story in the competition, send it as an attachment to editor@luminationnetwork.com.  Stories should be from 200 -500 words.  You can also enter edited video stories, no longer than two minutes, or audio stories, no longer than one minute. The story contest will happen three times– once during each full week of Christmas break. The deadlines to email your stories in are Saturday, Dec. 18; Saturday, Dec. 25; and  Saturday, January 1. The top three stories each week will be published on Lumination’s website, and the overall winner each week will receive a $25 iTunes gift card! The judges, Kate Keith and Hunter Patterson, are editor-in-chief and managing editor of Lumination Network, respectively. So get writing, have fun, and enjoy the holiday...
Former towel boy, now minor leaguer, Caleb Joseph shows how Bisons athletics can change young lives

Former towel boy, now minor leaguer, Caleb Joseph shows how Bisons athletics can change young lives

Caleb Joseph started off as a towel boy for Lipscomb’s basketball games.  Then he played for Lipscomb’s baseball team.  Today, he is playing in minor league baseball, and it’s all due to the influence of his idols – Lipscomb athletes. Joseph had family who attended Lipscomb University, and was involved in Lipscomb athletics from a young age.  Even though a Jr. Bisons Club did not officially exist until 2009, Lipscomb has been getting kids involved with athletics since 1978. Joseph was part of that effort, and remembers looking up to athletes. “When you’re a kid, they seem so much older, they have that mega-star quality,” Joseph said. “You want to grow up and be just like them.” Joseph was drafted in 2008, his junior year in college at Lipscomb University, by the Baltimore Orioles.  He played last summer for the club’s AA  Bowie (Maryland)  Baysox and then began catching for the Scottsdale Scorpions in the Arizona fall league. Joseph said while he was playing catcher for the Bisons, there were many bat boys – mostly ages 5 and 6 – who spent time with players on the field.  He remembers a pair of twins who loved being bat boys so much they stayed on for the whole season. Joseph said Lipscomb athletics contributed greatly to who he is today. “I remember him when he was just a little towel boy,” Andy Lane, executive director of the National Bison Club at Lipscomb, said.  “Now he’s all grown up – we really feel like next year he may be in the big leagues.” Lane remembers Caleb Joseph as a youngster, but knows that kids...
Lipscomb sophomore delivers letters of love to Uganda’s diplaced children

Lipscomb sophomore delivers letters of love to Uganda’s diplaced children

Tory Wolf, a sophomore social work major, just returned from delivering letters of Christian encouragement and love to Ugandan kids. The Brentwood native previously visited Africa twice, going to Rwanda, Ghana, and Uganda. This time she went toting the letters written by members of her Lipscomb social club. Heather Hall, sophomore elementary education major from Louisville, Ky., and service coordinator for PKS, said Wolf’s enthusiasm inspired the project. “Tory Wolf thought it would be a great idea if fellow Christians wrote letters to the kids there,” Hall said. “We all decided that that was a wonderful idea – spreading God’s love, even if it’s as simple as drawing a picture and writing a short note.” Wolf is devoted to this type of mission work. “This is my passion,” Wolf said. “Since there are a million displaced people, there is a huge need.  This is my plea to the Lipscomb community – that people would be willing to reach out and help in any way they...

Cause Week brings awareness, funds to Ulpan Valley

This year, PKS raised money to film a documentary about the Ulpan Valley that will bring awareness to the Guatamalan government. PKS has worked for the World Vision 30 Famine during cause week for the past few years. But this year, Co-Chairs of cause week Caroline Cook, junior history and law, justice and society major, and Lynsey Myers wanted to do something different. They found out about the documentary the first week of school this semester, and decided to devote the earnings of the week toward bettering the situation in Ulpan Valley by promoting the documentary. As with most projects put together by Lipscomb’s students, this project involves students from all different studies. “The entire project is holistic,” Cook said. “Communication students are making the documentary, an English student is doing articles for the website and several pre-med students have gone [to the Valley] on a spring break mission trip.” Cook is confident with the results of cause week. She and her fellow PKS members have put in long hours and frequently been discouraged, but she feels that their effort has been worth it. Through cause week, PKS raised over $1,400 toward promoting the documentary for Ulpan...

This ‘Hereafter’ is not one to look forward to

Connecting with the dead may have some appeal, but as far as movies are concerned, it is important to connect to the audience.  And in this department, Hereafter is dead on arrival.  Why?  Because there is no climax or storyline, and no character development. Each of the characters is troubled, but instead of developing the characters or offering a moral lesson, after 129 minutes the movie simply, well, ends.  There is nothing.  The characters stay confused and simply leave once they get a psychic reading from Matt Damon’s character, George Lonegan. The three characters – Marcus, Marie, Malorie – are troubled by events from their pasts.  Marcus’ older brother dies, Marie has a near-death experience, Malorie, who has unresolved conflict with her father in her past, drops out of the story half-way through the film and never surfaces again. Damon’s character is a middle-aged psychic who no longer wants his job, but seems to have no development and no resolution.  In the beginning of the film, he is frustrated with his brother for exploiting his psychic ability, and confused about what to do.  At the end, he leaves for England, still frustrated and confused. The movie as a whole lacked resolution.  It felt more like a snapshot than a story.  None of the characters get resolution, just readings.  For George Lonegan, there is no indication that his struggle is ever resolved or even justified.  Perhaps there was some subtle closure in George getting the “normal relationship” he wanted at the end of the film, but for the average audience member, this is hardly satisfying. Directed by Clint Eastwood, this film is rated...