“It’s disturbing how many people bring knives on dates.”

— Sullivan, reflecting on romantic carvings in the wooden observatory deck on the Bog Trail at Black Moshannon

“I also have some lead. I want to mail it to my Aunt Joanna in California and see how she reacts.”

— Sullivan, showing off his elements collection

Sullivan: Mom, can you snuggle me?
Carla: I already snuggled you.
Sullivan: But that one didn’t take.

Mom, why is mama’s milk discontinued?

— Éa

“Emotional support feels terrible.”

— Carla

Don’t worry: The water on the floor is tears.

— Éa

Sullivan: Yeah, even Mimi’s inflatable balls are giant! [LAUGHTER] Put that on Familypants, Dad!
Scott: I’m not sure that I will…

If I’m ever going to become a successful scientist, I’m going to need less hair.

— Sullivan

upon seeing Neighbor Dave at his retirement party at The Tavern…

Scott: Do you know what retirement means?
Ea: Yeah! It means giving up.

[five minutes after bedtime lights out]
Sullivan: Mom?
Carla: Yes?! [long pause]
Sullivan: Why, when, or how did burritos originate?

“I no longer spend most of my time with college professors like myself. I’ve traded in the PhDs for Kristi and my friends at Highland.”

— Richard Beck

Perhaps we could call secular Christmas “Wintercheer.”

I seek a metaphor to illustrate a possible metaphysics of my claims that “only our good works will be saved” and that the “line between sheep and goat runs right through me.” How do I survive but my unrighteous deeds do not? How is it so unpleasant as to be called Gehenna?

friend:

Can you help me answer a few of these questions:

1. If we affirm Homosexuals because they are “born that way” when clearly it is at the least not the natural ideal, then what would keep us from affirming someone who is born with a propensity to steal, or lie, or fornicate, or any other thing? A huge component to following the narrow way of Christ is denying our “natural” selves.
2. Along those lines, what would you do if a leader in your ministry said they don’t think the passages about sex outside of marriage apply to today, and they will be sleeping with whoever they want. They point out that it’s really just a few passages that mention this. If I’m open to accepting a different opinion on this issue, why not any and every issue?

What is the pandora’s box of sin we would be opening if we allowed this?

me:

Glad to help. I do see a risk of opening Pandora’s box if we allow same-sex marriage in the Church without a clear...

Apparently, it’s “deliver us from the evil one” (NRSV, NIV, NLT, HCSB) and not “deliver us from evil” (NAS, KJV, ESV) That makes more sense. Gets God closer to batting 1.000 for the prayer His son instructed us to pray.

I’ll try to alternate nonfiction and fiction.

“The dark paradox, then, is this: the more we seek to alleviate our loneliness through digital connectivity, the more lonely we will feel. Along the way, we will forsake solitude as a matter of course. Curiously, it may not even be loneliness as a desire for companionship that the design of social media fosters in us. Rather, it is a counterfeit longing that is generated: for stimulation rather than companionship. In the end, we will be left with the most profound loneliness: perpetually feeling a need for connection that we cannot satisfy and finding that we have not even our own company. To recap: no abiding sense of companionship, no solitude, no place for thought.”

— Michael Sacasas, “Solitude and Loneliness”

“I’m not Atlas, on any conceivable level.”

— Tom Belt, in a pithy, poetic expression of our dependency of God and others

“It’s almost as if sex is not just a meaningless commodity traded between the consenting but, in fact, is an act so deeply powerful that we should consider wrapping it in an institution of personal commitment and public accountability.”

— Matt Popovits

friend:

In the next chapter Jesus seems to switch from Salvation by “what they do” to belief in Him. In chapter 5 he indicates that he’ll raise people who did good deeds up to life and those who did bad deeds to judgement, and then in Chapter 6 it’s those who behold and believe in him that he’ll raise up….

A bit conflicting…How do I get raised up to life!?

Also while I was in the US, one of our leaders here gave a passionate talk about the evils of homosexuality and how the bible “clearly” states this is sin. So that is causing some waves…

Fun fun.

me:

Hi Ethan –

I find my eleventh-grade math-class logic lessons useful here. First of all, there is no p → q statement in John 6:40. It does not say, “If you see the Son and believe in him, then you will have eternal life and I will raise you up on the last day.” So no need to worry about that one. But, you’ll say, at least two other verses in the chapter can be formulated as such:...

“Being incarnate was an embarrassment, a design-fault that God may have intended in the Italians but surely not in the English.”

On the English supposed “quiet suspicion of sensuality” that he saw in the old English. It made me laugh out loud.

“Sexual puritanism is an attempt to safeguard possessions more valuable than pleasure. The good that it does outweighs the evil, the English knew this. They were seriously repressed, largely because repression prevented them from carelessly throwing away those things—chastity, marriage and the family—which slip so easily from the grasp of people whose natural tendency is to keep each other at a distance.”

This captures why my sexual ethics.

“Much as we should be grateful for the language and liturgy of the Anglican Church, we must deplore the weird interdiction which killed of polyphony at the very moment when Tallis and Byrd…had learned to rival Palestrina and Victoria in this supremely religious art form.”

The Anglicans outlawed...

friend:

If we’re to take 1 Corinthians 15:22 as making any sense at all, and if we agree that all have sinned/died (in Adam), how can we not end in Universalism?

To not end there is to make Adam more powerful than Christ.

In reply, I wrote:

me:

I suppose one might interpret “made alive” in a very literal sense, affirming that everyone will be resurrected, but allowing that some of those resurrected will be wholly condemned.

But yes, I agree with your take below. Romans 5:18 is very similar.

Have you read “Universalism and the Bible” by Yale philosopher Keith DeRose? Reading it was probably the last straw for me.

What I learned form hunting this past weekend:

• Stalk the whole way to your hunting spot.
• Stalk the whole way from your hunting spot.
• The manure pile is a great place from which to shoot.
• Get more doe tags.
• Reading will be the thing I use to redeem the time.
• During the rut, buck are apparently most active from 11 AM – 2 PM during daylight hours.

friend:

As I read the words of Jesus as he talks about the afterlife or the “judgement day”, I do not think he got the memo of “Saved by Grace”. In the classical gospel representation, if you confess with your mouth, and believe in your heart that Jesus is lord, you will be saved. That “saved” is most often interpreted as “from the judgement”. All through the new testament it talks about having our sins washed away by the blood of Jesus, etc.

But Jesus in John 5:28 talks explicitly about those with good deeds being raised to life, and those with evil deeds to judgement. Matthew 25 gives the same criteria - how you lived, not what you believed. I would say that if you just read Jesus' words, you would never come away with a “his blood covers all my sins and makes me alright with God”. But I readily admit that the new testament authors did strongly imply this relationship - 1 John 1:7, Hebrews 9, Romans 10.

So what do we...

“Next time, before you proclaim that ‘we never talk about X’—remember this only unveils how small your ‘we’ is.

— James K.A. Smith