Smattering of recollections from venison roast dinner this evening with Sauders at their house: I got to share my Alan Jacobs story. They were delighted at God’s activity. They remarked that we’re funny—like, make-you-laugh funny—something they don’t have enough of among their friends at University Mennonite Church. I surmised that social justice warriors have a hard time smiling. Ruth insisted that people ought to grow more idiosyncratic as they age, as long it’s not grumpily idiosyncratic. As such, in reply to Carla’s question about whether the Sauders think I’m weird, her answer was a very positive affirmative. I picked up Ta-Nehisi Coates’ letter to his son as my next book. The kids made Ed the Rabbit some things to chew on. It was a delightful evening.
Here are my notes on Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates:
On reading at Whim:
“The pursuit of knowing was freedom to me, the right to declare your own curiosities and follow them through all manner of books. I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people’s interests. The library was open, unending, free” (p. 48). Reading these sentences was electrifying to me coming off of Alan Jacobs’ The Pleasure of Reading. It also captures some of why I don’t read the news: I don’t wish to be subject to what people I don’t know, who are paid to write, say is important.
A double standard:
“…they understate the task and allow the citizens of this country to pretend that there is real distance between their own attitudes and those of the ones appointed to protect them…” and so on through the paragraph (78–79). Earlier in the book, he calls Samori to respect the story of each individual, to not let the experience of single souls get wiped away by the...
// read full article →The politics of Jesus: serve widows & orphans. Welcome foreigners. Prefer outsiders over insiders. Be kind to sinners and tough on saints.
Notes on The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by Alan Jacobs:
My distillation of Alan Jacobs’ recommendations on how to read:
- at Whim (delight),
- slowly,
- aspiringly,
- actively,
- upstream, i.e., the influences on your favorites,
- absorbedly,
- differently for different texts (reading for information, understanding, or entertainment),
- not like you’re at school,
- serendipitously—not according to a list,
- effortfully,
- the same book twice if you feel like it,
- for company,
- charitably,
- not self-congratulatorily,
- Wodehouse, and
- not lying to yourself about who you are as a reader, embracing your delights.
If “faith in Christ” should sometimes be re-rendered “the faithfulness of Christ” (e.g., Romans 3:22), should “believe in Him” be rendered “be faithful to Him”? That’s no minor soteriological point.
I’d love to read during my half-hourly work breaks, but that defeats the purpose of the work breaks: To give my attentional resources time to recharge.
Reading The Pleasures of Reading will not only renew my love of books and inform how I choose what to read, but also inspire me to long-form attention again.
After an evening with Ben for the Roomful of Teeth concert at Schwab Auditorium, a lunchtime with Ernest yesterday, and a long campus walk with Mark last night, I reported to the Rookes that Carla says I abuse introverts. I hope it’s not true. Lord, may I be slow to speak.
Lord, I find your commands in the Sermon on the Mount to be empowering.
Retiring for bed as soon as I could after the kids were in bed last night? The best decision I made all October (other than renting a bike in Seattle).
I must remember this every time I am tempted to press the 11 o’clock bedtime envelope.
Note to self: an increase in irrationality, peevishness, or moodiness that has no quickly identifiable cause is probably due to being some combination of undersexed and overtired. The end of Daylight Savings Time has wrecked me this week.
I had feelings about the presidential election results.
“Things getting worse isn’t always a bad thing.”
— Carla
“Rule of thumb for my life: When God seems absent, or there’s not enough God, I’m on the verge of finding more God than I could have imagined.”
Baby, I need your lovin' Got to have all your lovin'
— The Four Tops
I woke up with these lines in my head yesterday morning. They were not accompanied by any assurance that they were from God. Perhaps I should stop noting the ones I’m not sure about, lest I give the impression that I’m suffering from severe confirmation bias.
Yet there is no reason to not make something good of this delivery from my subconscious mind: God wants all my loving. Actually, to be more precise, my first, most prophetic-sounding idea from this lyric was one of keeping my eyes fixed straight ahead, not frittering my attention on wasteful, lustful, unloving. It’s basically a reiteration of [1 Corinthians 16:14](1 Corinthians 16:14).
I am most comfortable in situations where I feel the superior. This is probably true of most people, but I noticed it this evening when my friend and his new squeeze came over with his sons at Sullivan’s request.
Would that I would take that comfort in my own skin with me in all social settings.
I was asked in my dream who the three greatest presidents of the United States were. I replied:
- FDR, who got himself elected to four terms and helped the country through the Great Depression through strong executive action and the creation of government work programs,
- Jefferson, who, if he did nothing else, made the Louisiana Purchase for cheap, and
- Teddy Roosevelt, who, I said in grateful tears, established our national natural resource conservation program.
It turns out those are the second, fourth, and fifth greatest presidents of all time according to an aggregate of a bunch of scholarly surveys on Wikipedia.
I journal this mostly because of the tears I shed in thanksgiving to Teddy Roosevelt.
“Don’t judge me” is, hope, something you’ll never hear me say. I, for one, look forward to being judged. I hope you do, too. Most of us here on Twitter judge every day. You can’t have justice without judgment, by the way. (HT Dale Allison). If you must defend yourself against judgment, perhaps it’s better to say, “Don’t misjudge me” or “Don’t condemn me.“
“Let the seasons begin,” sings Beirut in my head as I wake up. A fair enough piece of advice for a time when I’m upset that I’m not doing anything with my life after Dylan and Noah leave.
For posterity, I’d better explain: Fostering Dylan and Noah lent me noble purpose. Sending them back their parents removes that purpose, which sends me reeling. It doesn’t help that my friend comes over last night with a young man who is determined to build physical environments conducive to the formation of Christian community, after spending the last few days touring the town talking to community-minded folks like Christian Baum of co.space, Joel Martin, and the staff of the College Township government administration, so as to pick my brain about Christian community, something about which I don’t know much. I leave that conversation and go to bed angry that I’m not doing anything “kingdom-minded” or noble.
You, God, or my subconscious mind tells me as I wake up, “Let the seasons begin.” For...
// read full article →It may help in interpreting Jesus’ parables to picture Him saying them to people, or perhaps to picture yourself saying them to people. That clarified the Parable of the Wedding Feast for me today.
How shall I spend my spare attention these days, now that Noah and Dylan have gone home? On my family, I think.
[after Éa enters the room having found a book that had been lost for a year and half]
Carla: Oh, Éa, where did you find it?! Éa: It was where all the lost books are: in a responsible place! 📚
“God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false” (2 Thessalonians 2:11).
This evening, I am uncomfortable with men ascribing action to God. It makes me want to throw out all of the parts of the Bible where that happens. Why would God send a deluding influence on anyone?
Since the parousia has taken so long, It is functional to replace “the day of Christ,” and other such phrases with “the day you die.”
The Bible is very clear about condemning sexual immorality. But there is but one moral absolute: love, that is, self-donation for the benefit of another motivated by a view of that other as wonderful. While that pole means a lot of human-facing behavior will remain classified as immoral in almost all situations (adultery [although not, perhaps, consensual extramarital sex], stealing, killing), some behavior, like same-sex sexual activity, will be reclassified over time. Culture will condition to what degree a specific act is immoral.