Scott Stilson

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Kevin Max is apostate. Tait is a sexual predator. Toby, don’t fail now.

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A way to actionably summarize part of my June 1 post: If it’s not for the sake of someone else, then do it in thanksgiving. If I stick that two-part rule for behavior, I’ll be doing everything in love.

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Whoa. If we don’t listen to God, God doesn’t listen to us. Or so I’m taking from Zechariah 7:13-14.

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“For others.” As I was concerned last night about whether my inclination to stay home on a Saturday night instead of socializing—not that I had an invitation—and in a more general sense about whether my current stance of what seems to me to social passivity, at least relatively speaking, as well as my choosing to read books or listen to recorded music by myself is OK, I went to bed pondering how to rephrase “Let everything you do be done in love” to be more incisively helpful in making daily decisions about what to do.

“For others” is the thought I woke up to this morning, as in, “Let everything you do be for others.” I have since expanded that slightly for clarity to “for the sake of others.” Let everything you do be done for the sake of others.

Staying home last night in particular fits this criterion just fine: I’ve been underslept since hearing about Frank’s cancer last Tuesday, and I’m well aware that sensitivity to suboptimal sleep volume is my behavioral Achilles’ heel. Going to...

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The distinction I’ve been seeking between the kind of amends the Father has declared no longer necessary by the cross of Christ and the kind of amends still required may be well captured by calling the former “symbolic” and the latter “proving.” Apologies, gifts, animal sacrifices, and Jesus’ cross are symbolic. That doesn’t mean symbolic amends aren’t necessary: It is impossible to prove repentance immediately. Hence, a token that’s symbolic of our repentance often must be extended in order to proceed, and hence, our impulse to make cultic sacrifices to God is a good instinct.

But God desires to skip such symbolic amends, which run too high a risk of masking an absence of true repentance, preferring instead to get straight to the heart of matters. He wants us to live lives characterized by earnest attempts at obedience to the law of love—amends that proving, not merely suggestive, of repentance.

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I am a punishment for gluttons. ✏️ 🎤 🎵

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The problem of divine hiddenness doesn’t bite as much when you consider that despite God’s hiddenness, over seventy percent of the world’s population is probably monotheistic, pluriform monotheistic, or henotheistic.

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“Pay close attention to yourself and to the teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will save both yourself and those who hear you” (1 Timothy 4:16).

The only way this makes sense is if salvation is transformation by the renewing of your mind (and all that flows from that).

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“Law is laid down not for an upright person, but for…slave-dealers…“ (1 Timothy 1:9a,10b). How have I never seen this before? At least some followers of Christ have been opposed to slave trade since at least near the beginning?

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Line from “Citizens” currently striking me: “Everyone born is illegal when love is the law of the land.”

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A quatrain ahead of Mother’s Day:

Thoughtfulness requires thought.
It’s not a thing that can be brought.
So quit your feeling all distraught
And take a sec to think.

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Just finished reading: The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World (2024) by Christine Rosen. Its main idea is that it’s inadvisable to allow the ascendance of smartphones and similarly attention-sucking entertainment and communication technologies to extinguish the non-mediated experiences they often replace, all of which have benefits. The threatened experiences she covers are:

This is one of those reads that’s preaching to the choir. But I’m in that choir, and I like it. It prepares me to make my case with evidence. Here are...

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Just listened to: a recording of Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture, Op. 62 (1807) by Klaus Tennstedt conducting the NDR Sinfonieorchester live on Profil on an album whose centerpiece is Symphony No. 3 in E flat major “Eroica” (1979/2017). Beethoven would’ve made an all-time great film composer.

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“I need either talked into or out of purchasing a drill press.“

— Sully, in a text to his mom

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There’s nothing I can write about Beethoven’s great works that’ll be any great addition to the conversation. I think I’ll just stop trying, sit, and continue listening slack-jawed.

But I will (of course) keep a list: Here’s everything I’ve enjoyed so far.

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Just listened to: a recording of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58 (1806) by Stephen Hough on piano and Hannu Lintu conducting the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra on Hyperion (2020). No middle-movement mediocrity here. Good, clean, sparkling Beethoven all the way through. Delightfully wide tonal and dynamic range. Hough deserves his reputation as one of the greatest living pianists. The concerto deserves its reputation as one of the all-time great piano concertos. That Beethoven debuted it in a single 1808 concert alongside the debuts of Choral Fantasy and the Fifth and Sixth symphonies is incredible.

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Just watched: The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) by Lotte Reiniger. It’s the oldest surviving feature-length animated film. Come for the historical interest and the opportunity to behold an impressive, highly original silhouette animation technique. Stay for the surprising way, despite the poverty of the plot, that the shapes of these silhouettes and the herky-jerky yet magical way they move resonate with and reflect at some semi-conscious level the way you you live, move, and have your being.

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Carolina wren outside my office window definitely just got “The Dreidel Song” stuck in my head.

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Just listened to: a recording of Beethoven’s Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Piano in C major, Op. 56 “Triple Concerto” (1804) by David Zinman conducting the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich on Arte Nova (2005). Just as bands with three regular lead vocalists have a leg up on bands with just one, concertos with three lead instruments have a leg up on concertos with just one. Simple, energetic, classical-mode Beethoven.

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I have a soft spot for bands featuring three or more regular lead vocalists:

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Just listened to: a recording of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 21 in C Major, Op. 53 “Waldstein” (1804) on fortepiano by Ronald Brautigam on BIS (2008). Beethoven continues his habit of undernourishing his middle movements. But no matter: This is one of the man’s monumentally heroic sonatas, and it’s played here with dizzying snelheid on an instrument that, for its wider variations in timbre, I think I might prefer to modern piano.

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The threefold and fivefold) synopses are the only places where I articulate the entire breadth of my answer to the why and how of Jesus’ self-subjection to crucifixion. Someday, I’d like to expand that synopsis into a complete essay. For now, I’ve posted the threefold synopsis on Github, where I’ve added a shade of conditionality to the first liberation and where I continue to tinker.

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“I mean, you can’t just be a wimp and call yourself a pacifist.”

— Carla

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“What is the causal joint?” I asked God.
“You* are the causal joint,” He replied.

*plural

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Commemorative design celebrating College Township's 150th anniversary, featuring balloons, the years 1875-2025, and a central emblem.

Carla, a middle schooler, and I collaboratively created the above design for our local municipality. KB Offset printed it, and it now stands as an 8' × 4' banner posted along PA-26 outside the township administration building.

Here’s the municipal webpage on the subject of College Township’s sesquicentennial.