“I need your loving” = the family! I can feel the difference if I concentrate exclusively on them and don’t just move them around the house like furniture.
“Trust is important, but trustworthiness is even more so. Trust is only as good as is the trustworthiness of that in which we place our trust.” Thank you, Miroslav Volf, for saying what I said two years ago about why faith is a virtue.
When the apostles returned, they gave an account to Him of all that they had done. Taking them with Him, He withdrew by Himself to a city called Bethsaida. But the crowds were aware of this and followed Him; and welcoming them, He began speaking to them about the kingdom of God and curing those who had need of healing (Luke 9:10-11).
Sometimes—probably often—Jesus gave preference to the needs, desires, and priorities of others over His own.
Today, I I called myself a “whimsical dabbler” as a way of celebrating and embracing my quick decision to stand on our stoop and cheer the Nittany Valley Half-Marathoners on as they passed by about midday today. (We’re at about mile eleven of their route.) It thereby also a way to encourage myself to make more decisions of what to do out of loving whim, and to accept my identity as a dilettante, and not just in the arts. Indecision about hunting this past week had me down this morning after an unsuccessful hunt yesterday.
I did decide I would become a suburban bowhunter after finding out how much red meat meant to Carla.
Follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes, yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things. Let all that you do be done in love, that is, in self-donation for the benefit of others, whom you view as more important than yourself and unsurpassably wonderful.
“If the grass feels greener on the other side, it might be the Holy Spirit reminding you to water the grass you’re standing on.”
Do I need to be thinking less about the Bible and more about the world around me? Solving not the problems presented by the Text but those I find in the world? It’s a false dichotomy, yes, but perhaps not so much considering that I only have so much time.
I’m floored by Sullivan reporting today that he is bored with home life—and sad about it.
Our Father, who are in heaven…we wish You were here.
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.