My dubiousness about people using the names of the people they’re talking with, which Dale Carnegie suggests in his book as a key to winning friends and influencing people, is sound—times have changed since Carnegie’s book—except, huzzah, when you use the name in exclamations of thanksgiving, co-elation, or congratulation. In those contexts, it is pure simpatico, building the relationship 100%.
“‘Family quarrels are bitter things. They don’t go according to any rules. They’re not like aches or wounds; they’re more like splits in the skin that won’t heal because there’s not enough material.’”
F. Scott Fitzgerald • “Babylon Revisited” (1931)
Family walks are the best.
“What I heard, and offer to you for testing, was that…”
— Brad Jersak • Can Your Hear Me? (2003) [emphasis mine]
A remarkable qualifier in book by a Christian teacher. It shouldn’t be remarkable. It should be normal.
Any time I see people with AirPods in their ears, I can’t help but think they’re trying to save their half-eaten candy cigarettes for later.
I observed a prayer ministry session with a lady who would pray aloud and then the answers from God back to herself, out loud in continuous dialogue. I took notes during this awesome conversation and weighed carefully what was being shared. At times her grief and panic came through in the questions. “Oh dear, oh dear! What shall I ever do?” She would cry. Then the calm voice of the Lord would respond with gentleness and comfort: “My daughter, there is no need for fear. I am with you. Hold my hand, and I will lead the way.” This would continue for hours as God did his own marvellous [sic] therapy of the soul.
[…]
If you struggle with static when trying to listen, you might her simple method a try.
— Brad Jersak • Can Your Hear Me? (2003)
So there’s precedent for how I best hear Your voice!
Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald • “The Rich Boy” (1926)
This made me think of Donald Trump.
The house loomed up suddenly beside him, and his first thought was that it had assumed a strange unreality. There was nothing changed—only everything was changed. It was smaller and it seemed shabbier than before—there was no cloud of magic hovering over its roof and issuing from the windows of the upper floor. He rang the door-bell and an unfamiliar colored maid appeared. Miss Jonquil would be down in a moment. He wet his lips nervously and walked into the sitting-room—and the feeling of unreality increased. After all, he saw, this was only a room, and not the enchanted chamber where he had passed those poignant hours. He sat in a chair, amazed to find it a chair, realizing that his imagination had distorted and colored all these simple familiar things.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald • “‘The Sensible Thing’” (1924)
There it was on the bureau, the letter—in sacred ink, on blessed paper—all over the city, people, if they listened, could hear the beating of George O’Kelly’s heart. He read the commas, the blots, and the thumb-smudge on the margin—then he threw himself hopelessly upon his bed.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald • “‘The Sensible Thing’” (1924)
Then God said, “Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the vault of the heavens.” God created the great sea monsters and all the living creatures that swarm in the waters, each according to its kind, and all the winged birds, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth” (Genesis 1:20-22).
When I read “Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures” a week or two ago as I finished my usual solo lunch in the main conference room at DiamondBack, tears welled in my eyes. God wants our oceans and lakes and rivers to teem with life.
I’m memorizing the above passage now.
Man, that piccolo really makes your biceps pop!
— Sullivan
On my walk last night I tried to work out with God why I’ve been so unhappy this week. Toward the end of a mildly frustrating, brassy-heaven walk, I heard “Coffee!” At first, I thought this was referring to my actual intake of the decaf I recently secure via Jen Bean via Josh Potter from Standing Stone: Perhaps the intake of some other chemical from the coffee was depressing me. But after reentering the house, it occurred to me that wasn’t it at all. This decaf coffee was a great example of me treating something as a must-do that clearly is not. So here was the answer: I have been unhappy because I have been treating as musts things that are not.
friend:
Was reading Hebrews 6:1-3 this morning which lays out the very basics of the faith:1. Repent from any attempts to work toward “goodness”2. Have Faith in God’s forgiveness in Christ3. Baptism at the start of your allegiance to Christ4. Laying on of Hands - to receive the Holy Spirit? And Gifts?5. Resurrection of the dead (for those “in Christ"?)6. Judgement in the age or everlasting judgementMy reflection is that I have largely ignored “judgement” as a primary thing in my toolbox when preaching the gospel and I wonder if I should be rethinking how I communicate the message.[To] the last persons I’ve been involved in helping to allegiance to Christ […] I spoke heavily of the love of God, of their purpose is spreading that love, and becoming like him. The wife was baptized […] and we laid hands on her and prayed for the Holy Spirit. I think she would be able to articulate points 1-5.But I don’t think I shared much of anything about the judgement and that concerns me,...
// read full article →I would like to get back into sharing things publicly online for others’ benefit.
You’re very American right now. I mean in a good way. Not in an overweight way.
— Éa, replying to Carla, who had just told Éa her outfit was very Swedish
I committed mass formicide in June. But only because they’d’ve conquered my house if I hadn’t.
Oh, that? That’s just smooth jazz. Nothing to worry about.
— Sullivan, replying to an inquiry over his headset while playing Minecraft one night
Scott: You can’t touch my face. I’m in quarantine.
Carla: Well, I can punch your face!
[upon realizing that her formerly farsighted right eye is no longer farsighted]
Am I going to get a monocle!?
— Éa, happily
Ooh, I know the website! It starts with ‘hit tips,’ ends with ‘dot com,’ and…something in the middle, but I forget.
— Éa
It shall be unlawful for a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or… [an] expressed or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State, or local election.
U.S. Code Title 52, section 30121, line a2. President Trump is in violation of that law. Additionally:
[N]o Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution. President Trump is in violation of that clause. So, he has broken statutory and constitutional law. Out with him!
What I really want in this instance, as George MacDonald taught me, isn’t the forgiveness for the consequences of my sins (e.g., the wrath of God) but freedom from my actual sins. I’d like to become the father that doesn’t snap at his son. I don’t want an imputed purity. I actually want to be, myself, pure.
Good working definition of joy from Richard Beck: “great delight regardless of external circumstance.”
On the subject of the solo satisfaction of biological and psychological drives (e.g., eating, masturbating, sightseeing): As long as they are not harmful and they are undertaken with thanksgiving, they are done in love, and are thus good.
“[A] Christian sexual ethic is a process of transforming eros into agape.”