Scott Stilson

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The CEB reads: “You have this faith and love because of the hope reserved for you in heaven” for Colossians. So the vision of heaven enables us to be faithful and loving! Fear of death be gone! You see this in stories of the original Christians.

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“Mr. Casaubon, indeed, had not thoroughly represented those mixed reasons to himself; irritated feeling with him, as with all of us, seeking rather for justification than for self-knowledge” (George Eliot, Middlemarch).

Isn’t this true for all irritations! We don’t seek the deep reason. We simply want to know we’re right in feeling!

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Park Forest is a therapy dog. ✏️ 🎤 🎵

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When you marry, you relinquish unilateral control of your self-sacrifice. Most of it is automatically dedicated directly to domestic relationships. And even what remains is subject to a bilateral decision with your wife.

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What could I be doing now in theory that I’m not doing because Carla thinks I would be overextending myself in light of family life and my involvement with house church (which is true):

Now, maybe once I finish the Cross essay, I can start singing again.

I should be more strategic with how I spend my time. Wait. More strategic? Oi vey.

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Instead of my task list, my new default should be being with Carla.

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Sixteen candles, and what do you get? A man, I say, and a good one yet.

Humor and trust, ‘magination and joy, Honesty, playfulness, ambition and, boy, Invention and wonder, forgiveness and caring, Spontaneity, patience, focus, and sharing.

↑ A virtue list I wrote years ago. And all of them, Son, you continue to show! Permit me to add to it just a few more That you seem to have added to your inner core:

Ability, sympathy, detachment, loyalty, In my view, Oake, you’re better than royalty.

I’m proud of you.

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I caught my son meditating this morning. God, Your ball!

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We actually talked about a wind-down in the time footprint of my contribution at DiamondBack today in my annual review. Progress!

Now, as with paying reparations to descendants of slaves, the devil is in the details: At what point do we start doing it, i.e., what is the trigger? What does it look like, step-wise, to do it? Certainly, it doesn’t happen until I’ve finished paying my part in my children’s education (i.e., until they finish their post-secondary educations). Maybe at that point, I take whatever the difference is between the proposed raise and the years-aggregated inflation rate as time? What will that mean for my work itself? At what point will I no longer be able to make a contribution to DiamondBack?

Ben did say wage inflation will always trail price inflation. That seems like a problem.

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“Years ago my mother used to say to me, she’d say, ‘In this world, Elwood, you must be’—she always called me Elwood—‘In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.’ Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.”

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The word of the year for 2024 is “commitment,” as in an actor committing to a role, having no hesitation or second thought.

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The word of the year for 2024 might be “whim.”

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Go back to journaling to God.

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If you want good church, no need to stress! Just prompt everyone to bring something that would engender peace, or truth, or justice, or love, or generosity. Instead of fretting over who is going to do what, prompt everyone like how Daniel prompted us all at Thanksgiving (for something for which we’re grateful), and let it all be grace. That gets at making something happen but also having everyone contribute.

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Journaling is a way to relate to God. Not to inform him, of course, but to be like a little kid reporting on the doings of the day to a parent who already knows. The point is the relationship, the mutual enjoyment.

This is a little like how microblogging and blogging are to other people. Why publish at all? Not to inform, but to relate!

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Everyone has questions
That no one can answer ✏️ 🎤 🎵

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Do not heed the word of the prophets who prophesy to you. They deal emptiness to you. Their own heart’s vision they speak, not from the mouth of the Lord. They repeatedly say to those who despise the word of the Lord, “It will go well with you,” and to each who goes in the stubbornness of his heart, “Evil will not come upon you” (Jeremiah 23:16-17).

This reminds me of why I’m suspicious of so much of what passes for prophecy these days.

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I am acquisitive. I am sorry, Lord.

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Take your time, Scott. Just the next right thing.

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It’s making more sense to me today, which is convenient as Thanksgiving approaches: We give thanks for spiritual gifts and the fruit of the Spirit, as well as miracles, yes, when we have identified them. Beyond that, are thanksgiving is general, as sure, we cannot thank God directly for putting food on our table, it being seed suppliers, farmers, distributors, and markets, along with our own trade with our employers of our labor for money, that have put the food on our table. But all of that is part of a system, a system we call Creation, in which such things are possible and indeed, such things bring pleasure. Since we are addressing the Creator of this Creation, it is right and good to give thanks! It is the kind of thanksgiving that results in the delight of the Giver because He is able to observe the joy and peace that His creation has engendered in other creatures.

Finally!

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I woke up ready to sleep ✏️ 🎤 🎵

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Don’t complain. There is no such thing as suffering. Only refusal to accept things the way they are. By the way, Buddhists have defeated the problem of evil. I just need to find a way to cogently combine it with Christianity.

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Reading Jeremiah 7 helps me make sense of Jesus’ saying that He speaks in parables expressly to obfuscate the truth for some of His hearers. If my children have been acting up for so long that I’m about to punish them, I will stop giving them instructions meant for their nourishment for the time leading up to their punishment lest they get the idea that they can just always push me to the edge but I’ll always relent immediately upon their tidying up their act. If I never delivered a punishment, we have impunity, and impunity is bad.

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I just read in Jeremiah that God accused Judah of chasing after hevel (“mere breath”) and thus becoming hevel—just like Ecclesiastes! Anything you chase after, you become.

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Anagrams of Stilson Sauder