Scott Stilson

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Just listened to: venter på noen som venter på noen (“waiting for someone as waiting for someone”) by Valkyrien Allstars (2025). 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.

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Worrying about better sleep has made me a worse sleeper.

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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!

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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.

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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...

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

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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?)

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“The Choice” by William Butler Yeats

The intellect of man is forced to choose
perfection of the life, or of the work,
And if it take the second must refuse
A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.
When all that story’s finished, what’s the news?
In luck or out the toil has left its mark:
That old perplexity an empty purse,
Or the day’s vanity, the night’s remorse.

(h/t Graeme Wood)

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Just listened to: Our Gilded Veins by Rory Macdonald conducting The Royal Scottish National Orchestra on Outhere Music / Linn (2024). Bracing, pictorial, alternately elegiac and cathartic Scottish and English classical music, all of it written within the last forty-five years, most of it this century. Hubert Culot has written a more detailed review on MusicWeb International that renders much further comment from me superfluous, but I should like to note that the flautist Katherine Bryan’s performance in the title piece qualifies her as an endurance athlete.

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I’ve only ever heard linguistic relativity (the idea, called the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis when I was in school, that language influences worldview and cognition) discussed with an eye on perceivables, such as colors and “snow.” (This may be a function of my non-erudition.) I’m told the hypothesis is still merely a hypothesis and very much in dispute.

But if you apply the hypothesis as a lens to help understand our grasp of abstractions, such as what we talk about and think about in ethics, my study of forgiveness, the confusion surrounding it, and its supposed pitfalls suggests to me that a version of the hypothesis focused on definitions of words representing abstractions is indisputable: If you say forgiveness is required, it matters very much to your worldview and thinking—not to mention your moral performance—how you define forgiveness. Same with love.

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Just re-listened to: Ratatat (2004) by Ratatat. Because laptops were instruments even back then—and instruments capable of contributing to the creation of bittersweet instrumental vibes, at that, albeit indietronica vibes best suited for, say, an indie Sega Genesis game in which the characters mostly wander city streets. I admit I’m often not entirely sure which sounds are the synths and which are the guitars. Anyway, this is an album my whole family can agree on. Good for close listening or for background music, but admittedly slightly better for the former.

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Just listened to: I quit (2025) by HAIM. My bias in favor of bands with three or more lead vocalists has a sibling: A bias in favor of bands comprising siblings.

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A biblical understanding of the work of the Cross of Christ starts with this: Jesus willingly went to His death to fulfill the Law and the Prophets. Everything good the Crucifixion accomplishes by itself—and there’s a lot—flows from that fact. However, if the Law and the Prophets make no sense to you, that’s OK (and join a big club): Taking a page from Acts, I’ll tell you that Jesus wasn’t just crucified—He was also resurrected, validating Him as “both lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36) and thereby warranting your followership even if the import of what came two or three days prior escapes you.

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We are slaves of freedom ✏️ 🎤 🎵

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If I didn’t time myself at work, I’d be apt to spend less than forty hours a week working for DiamondBack, not more. And that’s no sleight to DiamondBack, who are doing good things; instead, it’s an indication that I’m interested in everything and am easily distracted.

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“It’s weird that we’d rather sit through another podcast episode about the loneliness epidemic than just call somebody unscheduled” (Aaron).

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“All things are permitted for me, but not all things are of benefit. All things are permitted for me, but I will not be mastered by anything” (1 Corinthians 6:12). And again: “All things are permitted, but not all things are of benefit. All things are permitted, but not all things build people up” (1 Corinthians 10:23).

After another morning waking up in the 4 o’clock hour and failing to fall back to sleep, I find myself freer than usual of my scruples. And I mean that as a good thing. Lord, let me not be mastered by anything except pure love for You and those around me. Not mastered by my own schedule, not mastered by my own scruples, not mastered by my own habits, not mastered by my own compulsions, not mastered by my own prior intentions, not mastered by my premade plans, not mastered by fear of embarrassment, not mastered by fear of overextension, not mastered by greed—none of these things, except insofar as they are coterminous with pure love for You and for those around me.

This...

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The Cross tells us we are definitely guilty. It also tells us that if we repent, we are definitely forgiven. To take one and not the another, setting aside that the latter is a non sequitur without the former, is to cause ourselves to suffer from incurable shame (if we take only the former) or to cause others to suffer from our seared consciences (if we take only the latter).

The above is true, by the way, whether we accept the logic of vicarious sacrifice, as ancient Israelites did and as most present-day Christians do, or reject it, as Girardians do.

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Just listened to: All The Difference (2024) by Skye Peterson, aka Phoebe Bridgers’ pseudonymous bid get on lists like this one and gain airplay on K-LOVE. 😉

In all seriousness, this is thoughtful, doubt-speckled, faithful journalmusic crafted by the Christian twentysomething daughter of Andrew and produced with tastefully anodyne charm by her brother, making for an incipient CCM dynasty I feel excited about. I even dared recommend it to my daughter.

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Just listened to: two appealing recordings of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (1824), mostly while lollygagging in Spring Creek Park in the late evening, both upon David Hurwitz’s recommendation:

The latter is like in that episode Star Trek: The Next Generation where Data claims people say his violin playing is technically flawless but lacks soul. To describe the Vänskä exactly like that would be to overstate things—otherwise, I wouldn’t have liked the recording at all—but its primary appeals are its tightness of execution and the clarity and dynamic range of the recording itself. You’re basically hearing the sheet music in brilliant lucidity. With Beethoven, that’s not a bad thing.

The former is a volcanic ripsnorter of a performance whose only drawbacks are the audibility of recording hiss during the quiet parts and the inaudibility of the alto soloist admist her cohort.

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My son just revived our old Tivoli Model CD and gave it to my daughter as a birthday present along with a pair of cheapo computer speakers. I’m doubly gratified: He used his skills to bless her, and she is now interested in my CD collection.

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Just finished reading: Solito (2022) by Javier Zamora. I am dubious about most movie, music, and book recommendations from friends. Only book recommendations from Josh and, now, after reading this book, maybe book recommendations from Ruth, will I take without hesitation. (Although she did recommend The Night Watchman, which wasn’t for me.)

Solito is a thirtysomething Salvadoran immigrant’s memoir of his illegal migration to California at the age of 9. It’s a hard travelogue told in the historical present tense and in the voice of his 9-year-old self. It tempts me to go find and read a bunch of think pieces so I can tell myself I have an educated opinion about borders and immigration policy.

But no, I won’t concern myself with things to big for me, although I will say that the cats-and-mice act at the Mexican border just seems so very silly. I do hope multiple someones better positioned than me to make a difference in this arena read this book. And me, I’ll just recommend donating to...

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If I were granted a do-over for the whole establish-a-household-and-rear-children thing, I’d equip my house with a corded landline and then bar cellphones from anywhere indoors other than the mudroom.

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“Make young friends. The old ones keep dying.”

— Larry’s parents, as reported by septuagenarian Larry today in church, who is attending three funerals this week

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Just finished watching “What’s in your bucket?,” a sermon given by Greg Davidson Laszakovits this past Sunday at University Baptist & Brethren Church, because I was out of town but want to drink from the same wells as fellow UBBCers when I’m away. Its point is simple: In light of James 2:14-20, your bucket list ought to contain goals of service.

I write about it neither because it was an amazing piece of oratory, although it was perfectly fine, nor because it changed my life. I’m not even necessarily recommending anybody else watch it, although it is only fifteen minutes long. Instead, I write about it because:

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