Scott Stilson

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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.

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Auto-generated description: A lighthouse stands by a rocky shoreline under dramatic storm clouds, with a ship visible on the horizon as the sun begins to set.

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.

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Front cover of The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by Alan Jacobs

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:

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.

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

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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.

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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.

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I am grateful for Elliott, Amber, and Vinny finally making it over for dinner tonight. I am grateful for a highly contrastive peace of mind today, with no anxiety-producing doubt about God. And I am grateful today for the opportunity to do good work on DiamondBack’s website.

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The anxiety I feel was I rise some mornings is not due to a threat to my theism. It is due to a feeling of ought and a greed for accomplishment.

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Note to self: Don’t spread alternative views, for example about the pseudonymity of Colossians, unless you think those views are worthy alternatives. In the case of Colossians, if stylistic variance is the only thing that advocates of pseudonymity have in their favor, then I don’t think it’s a legitimate argument.

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You want to know what I’m grateful for? I’m grateful that I knew just what to do in the face of anxiety-ridden sleeplessness that plagued my eleven- and twelve-o’clock hours: Drink a cup of chamomile tea, give thanks, and sleep in the guest bedroom. I was downright cheery last night as I went to sleep.

You want to know what else I’m grateful for: The present richness of the “little words” I received last year from You, God, to help me through this mind-crippling doubt. Transcendence was risibly thick with metaphor for You, and the realization about my inner skeptic is the H.L. Hunley is very helpful.

This morning I woke up with the words “dipolar theism” in my head. Fascinating, but I’m not sure how to apply the knowledge, except to say I think You’re perfectly capable of all those opposing traits simultaneously. Oh, and I’ll search the text of Satan and the Problem of Evil to make sure I didn’t see it there.

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If I am to be the Housatonic, a blockader of doubt-supply, I know what is the H.L. Hunley: my own skepticism. I had trouble getting to sleep last night because of doubt about whether God is real. Nothing external prompted the doubt this time. Well, except doubt about whether Greg Boyd’s theses about freedom, love, and risk in Satan and the Problem of Evil hold.

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I’m grateful for the video Carla shared with me of a young man reciting a poem about his doubt.

I’m grateful that the warmer-than-seasonal weather has returned.

I’m grateful for the spirit of love I find for my very predictable dad, who called today to postpone his intentions to visit to celebrate Sullivan’s birthday until “sometime halfway between Sullivan’s birthday and Éa’s birthday.” I intend to call him tomorrow. God, grant grace on a salty tongue.

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Today I’m grateful that somebody thought to invent space heaters, a very small one of which I just purchased and which I expect to arrive Tuesday. I’m getting chilblains on most of my fingers with it being winter and me working in the basement. I mean, some of my fingers look deformed.

I’m grateful for the Peters, whom we visited tonight on my whim. (OK, we had to go to the South Hills for milk from Meyer Dairy.) The long time that passes between when I see them outside a church context means conversation is always a little stilted at first. We just don’t know what to ask each other about. But they’re always welcoming, and once you get going, it’s always so warm. The kids still love going, too—although I’m not sure why: There aren’t many kiddo-friendly things to do there. But give Sullivan and Éa an elliptical machine and then a long sofa with crawlspace behind it, and they’re set for at least one evening.

Finally, I’m grateful for the confidence I feel having just finished Colossians that Paul both wrote it and doesn’t contradicts Jesus much.

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I am grateful for a possibly newfound ability to mourn, which I did with Carla tonight when she got a call from Carole saying that the doctors at Geisinger don’t expect Janet to live through the night. It felt good to cry. Faced with death, don’t attempt to console. Simply mourn alongside people. And then when they lose someone, as Janet’s family is about to, help a lot.

Alright, enough Scott-resolution and navel gazing. I am grateful for Janet. She brought gifts for our kids (and sometimes for us) almost every conceivable holiday. She joked a lot. She showed us the value of being friends with your neighbors.

That’s all I want to journal about tonight. Janet’s imminent death overshadows everything else.

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“Such people will go on and on about visions they’ve had; they get puffed up without good reason by merely human thinking, and they don’t keep hold of the Head. It’s from Him that the whole body grows with the growth God gives it, as it’s nourished and held together by its various ligaments and joints.”

— Colossians 2:18-19, my emphasis

Paul here—or whoever wrote this wonderful letter—is making a case they the Colossian church shouldn’t listen to people trying to put rules onto them because of visions they’ve had. But I extract a principle here that corrects: Visions are not what will sustain your faith. Connecting to Jesus is what will sustain your faith.

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Is Daniel Lanois actually David Ruis? Vocally, I can barely tell them apart.

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Carla and I watched Transcendence (2014) last night as per Instructions. It probably couldn’t have been more perfect taken as a message from God: People think Him less than human and misconstrue intentions. But, as Paul Bettany’s character Max says at the end of the film, ”He created this garden for the same reason he did everything. So they could be together”—the “they” being us. His intentions are purely loving and beneficent, even if His methods are foreign to us.

And that’s just the core of what you can take from it. It can get much richer than that.

I saw an IMDb post entitled, “Humanity Lucks Out With A Benevolant AI God, And They End Him?!?” Isn’t that just what we’re doing with God?

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I am grateful for the peace of mind that I have after a cathartic, hollering walk-and-stand with God near the far sheep barn earlier today.

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Every miracle has an explanation that competes with the theistic one. For example, Saul’s conversion, Krista’s xenoglossy, Emma McKinley’s healing, Joshua’s dual word of introduction—they are all explicable in terms other than God. Most of the best ones (e.g., the last three above) require the use of explanatory mechanisms yet unknown to science. But some combination of things we do understand—mere coincidence, hallucination, wishful thinking, confirmation bias, misreporting, misdiagnosis, placebo, and hoax—and things we do not understand—extraterrestrials, poorly understood psychosomatic power, the possibility of telepathy—could get the job done in every case.

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Following Richard Beck’s lead, I will attempt to answer in quick, bulleted form why I pray, even if and when most prayer requests go unanswered. I pray because in prayer:

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Thinking about prayer and remembering Luke 11 and Luke 18, it seems to be Luke’s assumption that God will seem very often seem unresponsive and unjust to us in His delay in answering prayer. It’s probably the norm. We should not be surprised that most prayers appear to go unanswered. But God won’t delay forever: At most, it’ll be the wait of a single lifetime before all begins to made right in the life of the elect (AKA, all of us). Because when we’re in His arms, everything will be A-OK.

This could hold even if Jesus was mistaken about when He was coming back and that’s the quickness to which He was referring.

It certainly won’t hold if God is a fabrication. But if you read the next entry in this journal, you’ll see that most of my reasons for praying hold even if God is a fabrication.

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Everything I pray for must lead to action on my part as well.

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I want to list the commands of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament, plus the commands of the other New Testament writers.

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Father, thank You for all good things: the College Township Bikeway, a family that enjoys walks, the Rookes, the rest of church, a healthy family, enjoyable music, good food, travel plans, gratitude, and so on, and so forth.

Father, please restore Janet’s health that she may live out the remainder of her days happy and well-related to her family, friends, and neighbors. Please hear Éa’s prayer at dinner today that our neighbor might come home from the hospital.

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One could make a formula that would calculate the solidity of my conviction that God is real. The formula’s elements?