I have recently decided to protest the apparently common atheist assertion that praying people pray only for those things that might happen without divine intervention anyway by praying for things I know God wants but that would also be impossible without Him.
For the second consecutive year, I’ve been referred to Chris Kiver by an outstanding member of the State College Choral Society to audition for the Orpheus Singers: Colleen emailed me today about it.
Other than the remarkable depth to which my telling her as an aside that I wasn’t going to sing with the Choral Society this season felt like a confession, the thing I found most remarkable about my emotional response to this message was how much it stirred up again my desires to be a specialist. To pick something, just one thing, and concentrate all my energies into mastering it. Choral singing, solo singing, pop singing, hootenannies, improving neighborhood walkability, improving neighborhood bikeability, building relationships in my neighborhood, front-end web development, sales, tweeting, music appreciation—the list of possibilities feels endless. However, nothing pulls my affections like singing, perhaps because it’s the one with which I have the longest history, the one for which I feel most guilty not having pursued.
But unless my soul changes, I need to consider the following: I want to do those other things. If I plunge into singing to the depth I feel like I want to, I will...
// read full article →You could see distress primarily as an obstacle to faith. But it might be more useful to see it as a means of grace.
Even better, you could see distress as an opportunity to help.
With “40 (How Long),” U2 beat IHOPKC to harp & bowl by fifteen years.
Walking is one of my favorite activities. That means this afternoon made my happy: I not only got to walk the sheep pastures with God and sing snippets of Delirious? numbers to Him, but also got to walk from Sunset Park to Pattee Library to Rec Hall and back—about one mile each way—with Sullivan and Éa, who enjoyed seeing the sights and climbing things as much as I enjoyed watching them enjoy them.
On our Saturday morning errands, feeling proudly countercultural, I suggested the kids walk ahead of me to Barnes & Noble while I returned spoons Carla had bought from Ross Dress for Less. Sullivan’s eyes widened with excitement at the prospect. So they did it, following the sidewalk as much as they could, as instructed.
In my perfect world, there would be sidewalks connecting Ross to Barnes & Noble, and it would not be extraordinary for a six-year-old to walk to a building three hundred feet away from his dad.
(The photos is from our walk back to the car together.)
Well, what do you know? We just contributed to the happiness, or at least the punctuality, of fellow travelers from Quebec to Baxter State Park. And the border guards on the logging roads near Saint-Just-de-Bretenières got their wish to be a little lonelier:
Today, Richard Beck combined two of my favorite things: ecclesiology and Calvin & Hobbes.
Death doesn’t mean the same thing to God as it does to us. That’ll help your theodicy.
Dear friend,
Would you kindly reiterate to your husband that his chocolate cake has been misnamed? Its remainders in my fridge are no cake: They are slices of heaven in cocoa-laden form.
Much love,
Scott
Romance has been this sort of…odd side project for us.
— Scott, in a large campfire discussion at his tenth wedding anniversary party of how friendship is the basis of his and Carla’s relationship
An unfinished verse about the problem of divine hiddenness
O, invisible God, whom I cannot see,
Please, please reveal Yourself to me.
I don’t understand what you gain by hiding,
Blah-biddy blah, biddy-blah biddy fighting.
But I know You are love, if you are anything all,
Blah-biddy blah, biddy-blah biddy fall. ✏️ 🎤 🎵
Why is faith a virtue?
Faith is a virtue inasmuch as its object is trustworthy. In the classical definition of God, then, it’s a pretty strong virtue.
And as for my requests recently to experience Him in a way that is inexplicable except by His intrusion, let me remind myself that with the miracles others around me have experienced, He has given me enough to go on.
Napoléon has been taking up our evenings; that’s why I haven’t journaled in the past two days. One thing I will journal now, though, is that Carla proved superior to me last night by suggesting that we sideline the movie until after this weekend because we have other things to think about. Why didn’t I think of that? I didn’t think of it because I was so committed to routine and doing what is “right” that I didn’t even consider doing anything else.
Alcohol is deceitful like money: It has its uses, but the freedom it promises too often enslaves.
Let not your to-do list take the place of the Holy Spirit.
This afternoon and evening were unhappy. It could be that I stayed up till a bit past 11 last night chitchatting with Carla in bed. But I think it’s more because I hewed too closely to my daily task list. More importantly, I didn’t hew very closely to You. There are times when I get “too efficient,” as Carla says, capturing task items very well but ignoring priorities, ignoring my heart, ignoring my desires, ignoring You. Why, today I could swear Carol requested my help in her remembering her frozen water bottle before she leaves tomorrow morning on her bus ride home because she saw that I am so robotically dedicated to my very reliable task list. But I’m a man, not a machine. I don’t ever want to lose my connection to You, or to the people around me. Let me be alive, not always working.
Maybe Watchman Nee is more correct that I thought, with his proposed dichotomy between living by the principle of right/wrong versus living by the principle of life. I still think it sounds too mystical.
The capsule reflection on that pamphlet that I posted to Goodreads: “I object strongly to the dichotomy introduced between decision-making based on right vs. wrong and making decisions based on...
// read full article →I hypothesize that the reason folks like me are OK with watching movie violence and less OK with watching movie sex is that the latter arouses feelings and potentially even action, while the former does not.
I was just praying through some of my “Favorites” I’ve marked via the new BibleGateway app, and it occurred to me: If I’m going to pray that I not be able to stop speaking about what I’ve seen and heard (Acts 4:20), I’m going to need to see something. The folks praying that prayer originally saw the Resurrection. I’ve seen nothing of the sort. So Lord, please give me or open my eyes to something to speak about!
A simple experiment in making friends (and thus a community): Let’s gather for a potluck dinner on the second and fourth Thursday evenings of each month.
Open to anyone living in Houserville, Bathgate Springs, Clover Highlands—anyone at all, really, but intended for folks for whom, say, Spring Creek Park is a walkable destination.
“What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured” (Kurt Vonnegut).
This write-up of mine describing the Houserville Social Club on the potluck sign-up sheet on SignUp Genius and the accompanying Vonnegut quote has taken on increasing value in my life recently. As if it really is my mission. Maybe it’s Robin Williams’ death and the admissions of depression that are being published everywhere in its wake that has helped galvanize it.
“I’m as warm as a peacock!”
— Éa [context forgotten]
After an evening with the Houserville Social Club that included a LifeFlight helicopter takeoff, new friends Janine & Kimberly joining us at the table, Wengyi signing up for the email list, a game of cups (frickets) played heartily with Carla, Lara, and the kids, then more dowel/disc/cup fun with just the kids, I find further peace in my current station. I am a:
- lover of God,
- husband,
- father,
- brother,
- son,
- dilettante,
- DiamondBack Truck Covers desk jockey,
- church member,
- neighbor,
- community organizer,
- someday adopter of children in need,
- helper of the cause of the Gospel in the Maldives,
- prayer warrior,
- and patient, skilled, act-ive lover of anyone who happens to be around me at any time, regardless of socioeconomic class, IQ, or other human differentiator.
The list above is enough of an identity and set of pursuits to satisfy this hungry-for-meaning soul. I need do no other “great” things. If I fulfill my roles above with all my might (the specific, mutable ones subject to Your redirection), I shall be happy, and I shall not blink on Judgment Day.
More importantly, I shall no longer be subject to judge-and-second-guess-myself day, which used to happen, like, every day of my...
// read full article →“…nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are on You” (Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 20:12). My, what a timely verse to pass on to Eric, who lost his job and has to decide what to do, and what a fine motto for any time like that.
“And seeing the man who had been healed standing with them, they had nothing to say in reply“ (Acts 4:14). Miracles silence Your opponents. That’s what makes their dearth so curious.
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is merely a more rhetorical way of saying, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Nevertheless, I do question whether incredulity toward an ancient miracle-claim is reason to withhold eternal life from those You love. If doubting Thomas gets a pass—[with a rebuke](John 20:24-29), I readily admit—why not the rest of us?