Daddy, I want to decorate the whole, whole, whole EARTH. 🎉

— Sullivan, after walking through downtown State College on New Year’s Eve with me

“He who hurries his footsteps errs.”

— Solomon (Proverbs 19:2b), in a maxim I need and love to hear almost every day, as somewhere along the way I internalized the exhausting idea that there’s always something I must be doing and that I’m certainly not getting to it fast enough

If the labels on her Christmas gifts were any indication, my daughter is gonna have serious trouble with folks over age 50 misspelling her name.

Having a deer stare me in the eyes as I took aim at him on opening day of rifle season here in Pennsylvania brought me to a new appreciation of the solemnity of killing for food. Watching him take his last breath because of violent action I took against him makes me sympathize with the literalist Biblical view that eating meat is a temporary provision only (see Genesis 9:1-4, Isaiah 65:25).

I kid not in saying that I considered vegetarianism that week.

In the end, I decided to continue my carnivorous ways, but with it in mind that I feast on the product of my own violence (in the case of my venison) or that of an agricultural mercenary (in the case of the rest of the beef, pork, poultry, and fish I eat). As Bill Johnson coincidentally tweeted on the same day I shot my deer, “A non-hunting meat-eater: someone who pays another to do their killing.”

And I want my children, if they are meat-eaters, to understand the same, so I plan to take them hunting once they’re of age. A taste of...

Sullivan: I forgot my sunglasses. We need to go home to get my sunglasses.
Scott: Why do you need your sunglasses, Sullivan?
Sullivan: Because the sun is a big, hot, round FIREBALL.

One of these photos is of Éa at four days old. The other is of Sullivan at three weeks old. Which one is which?

Scott: Where can we find top shelf bourbon?
Carla: Maybe you could ask for it on FreeCycle? “If anybody’s looking to get rid of their top-shelf bourbon…”
Scott: I’m pretty sure people have other ways to get rid of their top-shelf bourbon…

Sullivan: What’s Mama doing?
Scott: What do you think she is doing?
Sullivan: She is wiping that hanger thinger linger.
Scott: Well, that’s a very good name for it. But most people call it a curtain rod.
Sullivan: Yes…but I’d prefer to call it a hanger thinger linger. OR…a hanger wanger sanger.

Light pollution is a theological issue. 🚀 🌎

What do you do with your excess weatherstrip?

[while listening to “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley]
Sullivan: What are “every little things”?
Carla: Just everything. Everything’s gonna be alright.
Sullivan: God. ‘Cos he makes badness into…into…love-ness. He’s a nice guy.

Some platitudes aren’t all that banal that if you actually apply them. Thinking “no regrets” before all moral and relational decision-making and keeping “no regrets” as an attitudinal check and inspiration to action will inevitably result in a satisfied, good life.

It is kind of scrapey on your tongue. It is hard. It is hard to lick. It is round. In a ball. What is in it? It has a lot of sugar. You [c]an spin it. You can lick with two sides. It has a lot of juice in it also.

— Sullivan, describing his first lollipop

The scary part wiggled your head a little.

— Sullivan, after having watched portions of How to Train Your Dragon at a family friend’s house 🍿

[several days after Jami’s visit:]

Scott: Does Mama drive like a pinball?
Sullivan: Yeah, Mama drive data pinball into the back of Bam-Bam’s car yesterday!
Scott: Well, it wasn’t yesterday, but good job; you got the right half of eternity, at least.

Very glad human gestational length is getting media attention. No, seriously: Our understanding has consequences.

I write this to as a Christian to Christians in hopes of introducing a meme that’ll benefit the next generation of Christians: I’d like to float out there that evangelical Christian culture idolizes marriage such that some would-be avid do-gooders choose to get married and start a family without knowing the consequences it’ll have on their capacity for extra-familial ministry. Check out Paul on the subject:

One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord; but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and his interested are divided (1 Corinthians 7:32-34).

My experience so far as a family man bears this out: I am less at liberty, time-wise and energy-wise, to minister to others because I must also minister to my wife and children.

Is that a bad thing? Of course not. I delight in giving myself to my family. I wouldn’t have gotten married and had kids if I didn’t. But I didn’t realize the extent to...

Too often in the face of apparently opposing viewpoints we take the easy way and simply separate from the other person, or at least cordon off certain subjects as being taboo when talking with him or her. But check out what Paul has to say on the subject:

Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment (1 Corinthians 1:10; see also Philippians 2:2).

Doctrinal, practical, political differences be damned: We’re supposed to at least try to agree, and the only way to do that is to humbly converse about our differences. I find that when we give ear to the fellow with the apparently contradictory opinion—and that both parties respect one another and are willing to confess that they don’t know everything—everybody wins: Your opinions and thoughts are sharpened and/or changed for the better, and your hearts are drawn closer to the other person’s heart.

Traditionally, a church’s defining activity is its weekly worship service. To me, it ought to be weekly dinner.

Carla: Sully, what do you want to be when you grow up?
Sullivan: A man.

I watched this, the 39th greatest film of all time according to Entertainment Weekly, while at the Shore with a bunch of good friends. It’s got a contrived, fluffy plot, but some cheeky writing, pitch-perfect acting from the two leads, and captivating dancing—ah, the dancing!—lift it to being dazzlingly wonderful.

Carla: How do you always know what I’m going to say? Am I predictable?
Scott: No, you’re my wife. You’re only predictable to me. To everyone else, you’re a complete mystery.