“Critics of penal substitutionary atonement, and I find this a bit of a head-scratcher, routinely fail to appreciate how mercy, grace, pardon, and forgiveness are integral to the gospel” (Richard Beck). Amen to that!—and remember that I happen to think penal substitutionary atonement is bunkus.

Just listened to: Reina De Reinas (2012) by Los Tres Yucatecos. Were I wealthy, I would fly these three trovadores up from Mérida for all my special occasions.

What should I want? I should want the kingdom of God.

What is the kingdom of God? It is where His will is done.

What, then, is His will for me? That I love Him and love those around me, that I act justly, be kind, and be humble, that I rejoice, pray, give thanks, that I make peace. In other words: nothing context-specific.

Thus, all my context-specific desires, unless they bear the imprimatur of the Holy Spirit (e.g, “tend my sheep,” “strike the rock,” “buy your uncle’s field,” “stop, leave the road, and go left,” “separate the peanut”), are secondary. They are desires for other things that will choke the word of God if I let them. Even if they themselves have the potential for good.

I have many such desires. This world is overstuffed with opportunities to do and enjoy good. But it doesn’t often matter which I choose to fulfill, or even that I fulfill any of them at all. What’s important is that I fulfill the Prime Desire to do the will of God—even, I should emphasize, when that Desire...

Just re-listened to: Swordfishtrombones (1983) by Tom Waits. Barroom theatre under a heavy patina of sonic curios (horns, accordion, harmonium, Chromelodeon, bagpipes, bass-marimba, aunglong, squeeze drum, bell plate, brake drum, legs of a stool), creating a whole pocket universe of underbellies. If Heath Ledger didn’t take direct, wholesale inspiration from “Frank’s Wild Years” for his portrayal of The Joker, then I’ll be an organ grinder’s monkey.

Over the summer, my primary prayer for myself was that everything I do, say, and think be done, said, and thought in total love for You and love for those around me like they’re myself. A week or two ago, that prayer became more specific: that all my talking be full of grace (gift), as though seasoned with salt. And today, You’ve narrowed the focus even more: Let me do everything without grumbling or arguing. In the thick of this stressful period of home improvement that has often heavily dampened my mood and occasionally strained my relationship with Carla by its insistence that I keep working and my frequent ignoring of that insistence because of my antipathy for this kind of work—I couldn’t think of a more perfect directive. Thanks.

If one is going to spend one’s free time working, it should be work one enjoys or work that directly benefits others—ideally both. Do-it-yourself home improvement is neither of those (for me).

DIY?
No, I’d rather die. ✏️ 🎤 🎵

Ain’t no rainbow
At the end of your pot of gold ✏️ 🎤 🎵

When I’m old, I won’t regret not traveling more, like so many listicles indicate many people do. I’ve already traveled more than most humans do—certainly more than almost all humans of the past. No, I’m most likely to experience regret about insufficiently fulfilling my two most basic moral desires, desires I’ve found to be at odds in me for thirty years: to prioritize deep connections with those around me and to accomplish accomplishments, mostly for the sake of others, some for the sake of self-expression, sometimes both, that require sustained application of my whole self.

Given how continually at odds these two desires are in my life, there’s only one possible way for me to avoid end-of-life regret: Favor working toward accomplishments that can only be accomplished in close collaboration with those around me.

Just listened to: Midnight Of A Good Culture (2025) by Sho Baraka. Fortysomething 116er delivers 57 minutes of mannered, Christian yet doubt-laden, occasionally 80s/90s retro, occasionally obnoxious, yet masterful conscious hip-hop. RE: “Christian”: Despite this—and it is charmingly unabashed—this album ought to have a Parental Advisory sticker on it. It’s certainly the first Christian album I’ve heard with “n——” in the lyrics. RE: “mannered” and “occasionally obnoxious”: When the recording artist describes himself as a polymath and wears his love for André 3000 and Kanye on his sleeve, what else should I expect?

Lord, may I happily forget myself today in love for You and for those around me.

Every surface an ad
Every space a hotel ✏️ 🎤 🎵

Just re-listened to: The Ballad of Dood & Juanita (2021) by Sturgill Simpson. Like the art on its cover, dramatically it’s just a sketch (or a series of sketches in a single narrative line). A hackneyed one at that. But country, bluegrass, and old-time music trade in hackney almost by definition. And if this is the kind of affectionate craft (and vocals!) you put into your seven-plus teetering-on-corny vignettes, I’ll take seven more, please. A top-ten EP for me.

“I think people don’t change very much when all they have is a finger pointed at them.”

— Fred Rogers

Just listened to: Audio Vertigo (2024) by Elbow. Hey hey, my my—rock and roll (of the Peter Gabriel and In Rainbows variety) is still alive. Amidst middle-aged men in Manchester, anyway. (Props to them for pushing themselves as fiftysomethings.) How does a band like this count fewer than a million monthly Spotify listeners? The music is inventive, skillful, mostly happy, frequently groovy, and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. It isn’t petulant, mean, lascivious, repetitive, or harmonically simplistic. Oh, wait.

Just re-listened to: Semper Femina (2017) by Laura Marling while on a foggy walk at dawn. I enjoy her stuff most when it’s paired with alternative tunings and/or uptempo drumming (especially hand drums). I hear little of that here, which, despite the Tom Waits feint opener, results in a more MOR offering, like some slightly fey (that might’ve been the fog), ivory, female Amos Lee record. Not that I’m complaining.

Just listened to: Don’t Shy Away (2020) by Loma. Arrangement and composition are equal artistic partners in this trip-hoppy, art-rocky, twilit, encouraging, other-oriented dream pop.

Two’s a crowd ✏️ 🎤 🎵

Just listened to: venter på noen som venter på noen (“waiting for someone as waiting for someone”) (2025) by Valkyrien Allstars. More Norwegian prog folk rock, occasionally sonically reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac. Not as shimmering as their 2020 outing, and I miss the bit of vocal variety brought by Erik Sollid taking half a song’s worth of lead on that one. Still, even though I’m not Norwegian, these feel like some of my native sonic-musical textures.

Worrying about better sleep has made me a worse sleeper.

Just re-watched: The Truman Show (1998) written by Andrew Niccol and directed by Peter Weir. Film studies classes and media studies classes could (and hopefully do) have field days with this movie that would benefit humanity. I, for lack of time to sit, think, and write well along those lines, will offer this single intertextual connection along a more theological-anthropological line: “…so that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death…and free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives“ (Hebrews 2:14-15).

I’ll throw in a sociological intertext, too: “Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must…” (Elrond in The Fellowship of the Ring).

Bonus: I knew Philip Glass scored some of the movie. But I hadn’t noticed until this viewing is the first time I noticed he’s in it!

The most important theological question after “Is God real?” and “What is God like?” is this: “What does God want?”

Actually, the third is probably more important than the second.

I am deeply, intrinsically inclined to be subject to nothing and to no one. I wish to be in my own driver’s seat as much as possible. Yet, as Burkemann writes, there is a direct relationship between individual sovereignty and loneliness. I do not wish to be subject to loneliness. Moreover, I am, by dint of my creaturehood, unavoidably subject to the Lord of all. That’s true whether I’m acting so or not. Hence, trying to live my life by exercising unalloyed individual sovereignty is both maladaptive and false. What’s more, the Lord of all actually explicitly commands me to subject myself to others and even says that unless I die, I will be alone.

Yet a clear pattern has emerged in my own life: I do not initiate much social activity and decline much of it that is offered to me. I do this largely because I have used my considerable, insistent autonomy as a waymaker for productivity, energy preservation, and, to some degree, spatial and other kinds of order in our household. As a result...

OK, society, please repeat after me: Mental health ≠ happiness.

I’m aware this may sound silly to a public audience, but a very aspirational nickname for myself occurred to me today while in the DiamondBack second-floor kitchenette: T.S. Lovejoy. The “T” stands for “thankful” and “thoughtful.” I want to be T.S. Lovejoy. (I am motivated by words. How much more motivating will I find an epithet?)