The important part for me in leisure is a deliberate decision to engage and stay engaged. “…do it with all your might…” Remember the lesson of the ceiling at the Upper Room.

What should leisure be? Creative contemplative, fun, generous, fascinating, playful, relational, involving the body. Two kinds: still and active.

What am I bad at? Deciding what specificlaly to do when it comes to leisure.

Why? Lack of practice.

How to solve? Practice.

Do you mean it’s going to take discipline? Yes.

When you’re in a place, do the things the place was made for. For instance, if you’re at a roller rink, go skating; don’t try to get things done on your computer, even if you can. If you’re at Highland Regional Park in Johnstown for Sullivan’s bike race, do bike race or park things; don’t try to get things done on your computer.

The nice thing about an airship is that you don’t need a garage.

— Sullivan

I double down when I’m wrong? Wait. When am I ever wrong?

— Éa

You know, whoever came up with the term ‘dad jokes’ has clearly never met my mother.

— Sullivan

“Climate change is a pivotal opportunity for humanity to create new ways of living that regenerate instead of degrade Earth’s systems.”

— Eric Sauder, “Penn State Climate Solutions Lab [draft proposal]”

If one wishes to read a book to add to one’s mental furniture, one must read it with attention. I do not really believe it is necessary to take all the separate steps mentioned in How to Read a Book. In fact, I think there is one enormous emotion almost omitted—I mean love. Instead of reading as a task, why not read because we love the book, or love its subject, or love its author, or anyhow love reading?

— William Lyon Phelps, in a review of Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book (1940), as quoted by Alan Jacobs

I enjoy:

• walking
• conversing
• listening to music
• singing
• corresponding
• writing poetry
• praying
• lifting weights
• coordinating social efforts
• making & launching model rockets
• watching movies
• reading
• cycling

There’s no such thing as an intrinsically loving act. So don’t pray that everything you do be intrinsically loving. Pray that you do everything in love.

“And as she said this she had the feeling for almost the first time in her life that she was acting a part.”

— Sally Carroll Happer in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Ice Palace” (1920)

My reflections on excerpts from Do We Need the New Testament?: Letting the Old Testament Speak for Itself (2015) by John Goldingay:

A novel summary of the Gospel in light of the Old Testament:

In a sense God did nothing new in Jesus. God was simply taking to its logical and ultimate extreme the activity in which he had been involved throughout the First Testament story.

[…]

One might almost say that God had to provoke humanity into its ultimate act of rebellion in order to have the opportunity to act in a way that refused to let this ultimate act of rebellion have the last word.

[…]

My argument is that the execution and the resurrection were indeed the logical end term of a stance that God had been taking through First Testament times, so that the First Testament story does give an entirely adequate account of who God is and of the basis for relating to God. Because of who God has always been, God was already able to be in relationship with his people, despite their rebellion. God has...

At the end of the day, my belief that Jesus is alive comes from hearsay. I need to be OK with that. Am I?

The Bible is a reference book—a reference book authorized by God through His people. That “reference” status contains not enough information for us to gauge the historicity of its narratives or the authority of its imperatives. It is authoritative, but that doesn’t make every apparently historical account or even divinely issued command in it so.

Why is it wicked and adulterous to seek a sign? Is Sullivan wicked and adulterous in “waiting for proof” of You?

“It is a sin when someone knows the right thing to do and doesn’t do it” (James 4:17).

Community is built, not found. Therefore, stay for UBBC’s little post-service social time even though it is on Zoom.

Deliberate, unhurried, and unworried. That’s what I want to be.

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!