Since the parousia has taken so long, It is functional to replace “the day of Christ,” and other such phrases with “the day you die.”

The Bible is very clear about condemning sexual immorality. But there is but one moral absolute: love, that is, self-donation for the benefit of another motivated by a view of that other as wonderful. While that pole means a lot of human-facing behavior will remain classified as immoral in almost all situations (adultery [although not, perhaps, consensual extramarital sex], stealing, killing), some behavior, like same-sex sexual activity, will be reclassified over time. Culture will condition to what degree a specific act is immoral.

We rehabilitated the doctrine of the Final Judgment today in church. That’s nice.

I don’t always mind the aches and pains and the memory glitches that attend aging. They remind me that night comes. My hope is that light shines in the darkness.

— Dale Allison, “Heaven and Experience,” Night Comes (2016)

I don’t care what you think about sola gratia. If you don’t do what Jesus says in the Sermon, you’re building on sand.

I want include idle solitude in my life. I also want to read Richard Foster again.

I must remember that friendship is the gift I am most able to give the world, and that it’s people that matter most before anything else earthly.

I rode my rented bike today from the hotel to Kerry Park Overlook to the Fremont Troll to the Chittenden Locks to West Point at Discovery Park.

I sent a message to Carla upon watching the sunset from West Point saying, “If God is only as beautiful as this, He is enough to hold my attention for eternity.”

After returning the bike to Velo, I spent the entire walk back to the hotel worrying about where to put my stickers—the place stickers I get for my bike and the Restoring Eden stickers—in a place where they can be on display forever (so my computer, water bottle, and bike, which I think I’ll be replacing in the next ten years) but not call too much attention to myself or violate the virtue of humility.

As I read again a few reviews and the publisher’s description of Alan Jacobs’ The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, this time from the corridors surrounding the escalator well at the Washington State Convention Center, I teared up in gratitude as I concluded, tentatively as always, that You, God, had once again spoken directly to me for my good.

The message: You and those around you will be enriched if you heed Jacobs’ advice about reading, which Oxford University Press outlines as:

• read at whim,
• read what gives you delight,
• and do so without shame.

I’d add to this, as I’m sure he will in the book: read deeply and at length.

Why so grateful to God? Well, first of all, because You continue to speak to me in these little words and names I remember upon waking from a night’s sleep. I think I can tell the difference between a random surfacing of my subconscious mind and when You are speaking. But also because this speaks directly to an inner predicament I have felt acutely since having children, namely, that I want to read, but find it such a chore.

Relatedly, I delight so much more in the children’s books I’ve read than in the “adult” books I’ve set before me to read. Books are not to be broccoli.

For movies, I have no illusions: It is for beauty and entertainment and admiration. Same for music. But for books, I absorbed the idea that you should read in a utilitarian fashion.

Problem number 352 with Christian worship music: too much singing about the relationship and not enough singing about the ones who we are related

friend:

So have you seen your “Kings have no power other than what their subjects give them” anywhere else? Thinking more and more about it in light of 1 Corinthians 1:18 and the Cross being the demonstration of the power of God—precisely because it is the means by which he frees his subjects to become like him.”

me:

I’m not aware of anyone who formulated that thought before I did, although I do connect the highly circumscribed nature of human kingly power to the highly circumscribed nature of divine kingly power posited via the theodicy work of Greg Boyd, Thomas Jay Oord, Christopher McHugh, and John Caputo via Richard Beck. That last link you may find too progressive and deconstructed (as I do), but nevertheless useful. That last link is especially useful because come to think of it, Beck isn’t doing theodicy work with that blog series: He is formulating a rally cry for action. And so are you.

friend:

Hmmm interesting. He is using 1 Corinthians 1:18.

me:

Indeed. Caputo’s ontological assertions aside, Beck’s point sticks.

friend:

Ahh the age of “everyone’s a theologian.” I suppose I’m in that now, too. I think it’s good to have so many eyes on the thing, eh? It just makes for some fun googling—oh, wow, he’s saying angelic beings don’t exist?

me:

Beck is agnostic on the question. He doesn’t think it matters. He wrote a whole book about Satan and purposely plays cagey the whole time about whether he actually believes Satan exists.

friend:

Interesting…where did you come upon him? Now that I consider it, if the whole thing is summed up in love God and love my neighbor, I could be agnostic. Of course, I would have to account for what Jesus was doing and saying all the times he was casting demons out. Hmmm…we should be monks. Then we could just read and contemplate all day.

me:

A friend of mine from my Teen Mania days referred me to him when I first started my soteriology project. For a good understanding of why he doesn’t think it matters whether they’re real (or even, when push comes to shove, whether God is real), see “Is Santa Claus Real? A Parent’s Epistemological Meditation.” As for me, the historical facts before me, both ancient and modern, are easier to explain if there are such beings.

friend:

Yeah…woah this is a rabbit hole…

me:

’Tis. Anyway, yes, let’s be monks. Then we could read, meditate, pray, discuss, eat, and serve. And that could be it. It’d be great. There’s Franciscan monastery in Hollidaysburg. Screw it all. Let’s go.

We are ready to send Everett and Oak home. But we’re not. I’m sure these are the typical feelings of a foster parent. Life is going to be different. Quieter. This evening without them because they’re with Mommy and Daddy makes that sure. But as Everett would surely reciprocate, “I will miss you, Everett.” And I will miss you, Oak. We still have three weeks with them, so let’s make them count.

We asked Éa and Sullivan today whether they’d like to foster again. Sullivan said, “I’d like a year.” And Éa said, “Yeah, in like, five thousand weeks.”

A home is fuller if you’re stretched for the sake of relationships. Let us dig in to more people. Let us “love [our] enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return” (Luke 6:35). Then I will live without regret.

I am grateful for the moment of clarify I had reading Romans 14 this evening: If I let Paul’s use of the word “doubt” (diakrino) in vv. 22-23 interpret James use of the same word in James 1:5-8, then it is clear that Boyd’s thesis about “doubt” not being synonymous with uncertainty is true.

Actually, reading all of Romans 14, which touches on ritually-based vegetarianism and people following their own consciences, was exciting.

I am grateful for the light resolution I made while on my evening walk tonight that I can thank God for everything good and usually thank someone else for everything, too—a resolution I put into practice by thanking Christian Carion for making Joyeux Noël, which we watched with the Rookes last night.

I am grateful for Carla, whose beauty and diligence inspire me.

I am grateful for the Peters and the warm, fuzzy, family feeling I get when we come over for dinner—which we did tonight (eating the first of our venison in a chili Carla made) but which doesn’t happen nearly often enough these days. And it’s a funny observation where there used to be a bunch of teenage girls, now there are a bunch of teenage boys!

I am grateful for the theological flexibility I enjoy, which allows me to look at texts like Romans 13:11-14, which appear upon first reading to reinforce the idea that Paul was, like Jesus, Peter, and probably all the New Testament writers, mistaken in a belief in a literal, observable return of Jesus within his lifetime, and shrug my shoulders, saying, “Well, it could be that Paul was mistaken. And if he was, and even if Jesus was, it doesn’t change my commitment to Jesus. After all, Christianity is primarily a Way, not a Belief. Nevertheless, there are other interpretations: Perhaps Paul’s text does indeed refer to the divine judgement represented by the Jewish Wars and the destruction of Jerusalem—the context supports living a good life and honoring the authorities so as not to be caught up in the fires of judgment rained, which feasibly could have extended as far as Rome to anyone who associated themselves with the Jews, which would’ve included most Christians, I would think.”

I am grateful for being able to enjoy my own voice and share it with others who enjoy it, too. I shared “The Restroom Door Said Gentlemen” with the Peters over dinner. And Rich wrote as we corresponded about my selection for the next cabaret, “‘Friendship’ would be great! But you would still have to show off your pipes! Do you know ‘Where or When’ Rodgers and Hart?”

Bonus: I have persuaded Carla to agree to sing Cole Porter’s “Friendship” at the next FUSE Productions cabaret!

“I do not want to merely be called a Christian, but to actually be one.”

—St. Ignatius, as quoted by Stephen Crosby

You want to know something amazing? Doubting God has made more room in my mind for me to actually follow Jesus. Like, with my actions. I come from a tradition that doesn’t emphasize that.

And I am part of the body of Christ. If someone needs empathy, help, listening ear, money, websites, whatever—if there is a need, let me fill it. I am His hands. (Cue St. Francis prayer.) Jesus doesn’t usually ride in on the clouds and save the day that way. He saves the day through us.

Today I am grateful for Richard Biever, who works an awful lot under the auspices of his proprietorship FUSE Productions to bring the joys of taking in—and participating in—high-quality theatre to State College. I visited his house midday today to run through “O Holy Night” and suggest that I also sing “The Restroom Door Said Gentleman.”

I am also grateful for Carla, who continues to apply herself assiduously to making a happy Christmas for everyone in her social circle. Unfortunately, she said on our midday drive to HobbyTown USA today that she feels like she is losing God through it all.

Maybe Paul tells us to pray without ceasing because without prayer, it’s hard to believe in God. That’s my experience, anyway.

Don’t worry about the obvious physicality—and thus susceptibility to brain damage—of the mind, and therefore the self. God, the one who created everything from nothing, can surely un-disease those who have sustained brain damage.

I found great relief on this question as I started my evening walk by asking myself two questions:

1. How do we humans take care of the brain-damaged among us? (We care for them and, as much as is in our power, we try to reverse the effects of the brain damage. God will do the same thing in the life to come.)
2. Is there any kind of brain damage, disorder, impairment that we don’t think of as being just that: damage, disorder, or impairment? (No.)

I am grateful today for a son who grows in maturity and relatability. It was my honor to bring him to Panera this evening to share in a cherry pastry with him. We agreed it’d be good to learn computer programming together as father and son. I set a reminder for myself to look into the best, most child-friendly among the free starter courses that are cropping up seemingly everywhere online these days. We also played chess with a Super Mario set that Schlow Library had on hand.

I am grateful today for the evening of dress-up, make-up, dancing, and bathing together that Carla tells me she and Éa shared. I am glad they got to enjoy one another.

I am grateful for Greg Boyd, whose God at War Travis is reading at my recommendation while I re-read Satan and the Problem of Evil. Travis texted me this evening to chat briefly about how much he enjoyed Boyd’s use of quantum theory in the opening pages.

“Where God closes His holy mouth, I will desist from inquiry.”

— John Calvin

Now there’s a thought.

Hanging out with people is the only way to save the poor in spirit. Do I remember the two wall-to-wall days I spent with Uncle Chris? What a joy, and it touched his soul. It’s the only way—at least, the only way conceivable for me—for people like him and César to make their way out of moral and circumstantial poverty. But what am I to do? If I were a single man, I think I’d keep my job at DiamondBack and take it with me as I went on medium-term mission trips to live with César in Callao and with anyone I met who was a pariah, and I would hang out with them.

I have spent thought and lament the past several evenings trying to understand what exactly Jesus accomplished by dying on the Cross and, more acutely, how He accomplished it. And as if prompted by my worries, one of my favorite bloggers wrote a piece called, “Why Did Jesus Have to Die?” In it he provides the most comprehensive list of understandings of the Atonement I’ve ever seen in one place before.

And none of them are striking to me as it.

Still, there’s enough there to go on, I guess. And more important, I believe Jesus is the promised Jewish Messiah and the living lord of all. And I am going to follow Him.

Doubt baby review:

• empathy
• action-orientation (Jesus' main thing)
• final marginalization of Teen Mania-esque emphasis on making converts
• metaphysical flexibility (for me and for others)
• humility
• pluralism & ecumenism
• lightheartedness
• reset for my fight against sexual sin
• reset for my distraction at work

I think we could resolve some problems if we simply renamed the secular holiday, so that there’s the Christian holiday, “Christmas,” and the secular, gift-giving holiday, “Festivus”.