If the church is the people, then the gatherings and their proceedings are at their worst an excuse to bring those people together that we might realize more our inheritance of God’s kingdom. That means I should not wring my hands to worry about proceedings, whether liturgical as in the the case of UBBC, or low-churchy, as in our house churches. If I am to be unhurried, unworried, and deliberate, then I must be so about church. I will not worry about the way church proceeds. I will simply be deliberate.

“You going to be here much longer?” He asked, and then turned rather red. She might suspect his reasons for asking.

“Another week,” she answered, and stared at him as if to lunge at his next remark when it left his lips.

– Warren & Bernice in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” (1920)

“Do you have—fun while you’re on stage?”

“Uh-huh—sure! I got in the habit of having people look at me, Omar, and I like it.”

— Horace and Marcia in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Head and Shoulders” (1920)

friend:

As I’ve left the penal substitutionary atonement understanding of things, I’ve come to believe that God’s forgiveness was present before the Cross and that the blood of Jesus was not legally necessary for God to forgive sins: It was necessary for us to understand it. Because of this, I don’t see forgiveness in legal terms, but rather in terms of relationship: We simply return to Him, which was available pre-Christ as well.

Yet there are many troubling passages which allude to a legal understanding, as in “If you do this, then legally you’re out of mercy.” Among them Hebrews 10:

> For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there is no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has ignored the Law of Moses is put to death without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severe punishment do you think he will deserve...

Wars were all very well in their way, made young men self-reliant or something, but Horace felt that he could never forgive the President for allowing a brass band to play under his window the night of the false armistice, causing him to leave three important sentences out of his thesis on “German Idealism.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald • “Head and Shoulders” (1920)

Parenting Scriptures

• “Fathers, don’t exasperate your children, but nourish them in the Lord’s paideia and instruction” (Ephesians 6:4, mine).
• “But love your enemies and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil people. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned. Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return” (Luke 6:35-38).
• “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (Proverbs 15:1).
• “I give you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, so you also must love each other. This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you love each...

Éa: You’re very good at putting buns in. But you’re not very good at sleeping in them.
Carla: Build me up and tear me down! Build me up and tear me down!
Éa: At least you’re even!

I have been undisciplined about having fun the past couple days.

— Scott, rubbing his eyes

How do you reconcile the antinomy between these two excerpts from the Sermon on the Mount?

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Your light must shine before people in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:14-15).

and

Take care not to practice your righteousness in the sight of people, to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven…[W]hen you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your charitable giving will be in secret…[W]hen you pray, go into your inner room, close your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret…[W]hen you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that your fasting will not be noticed by people but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees...

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,...

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.