I spent the entire afternoon torpid. I mean, I took a nap on a picnic tabletop today during a church visit to Talleyrand Park. What is it about Sundays? Is this a lethargy I can end by flipping a switch in my brain? Tea this afternoon didn’t help.
The best solution is probably to just go ahead and take the nap.
The family couldn’t get enough “Hayloft” as covered by Nickel Creek today. (Well, that and Éa liked Dave Edmunds’ “I Hear You Knocking.”) This made me uncomfortable.
Some tired thoughts on this Swing Time (1936), which is the first film Carla and I have repeat-watched from the greatest lists. Is Swing Time worth watching? Yes. Like we did with Top Hat, we shared some of the dance numbers with the kids. We weren’t sure what to do with the Bojangles number at the time; Wikipedia now tells us that the Bojangles is a real person to whom (with one other guy) Astaire was paying tribute, not aping. Carla and I agree it’s the better of the Astaire-Rogers films we watched, although I’m more tickled with the dancing in Top Hat. It’s the faces, though, in this one, like Ginger’s when she comes to plant a kiss on Fred in his dressing room, fails, and then they kiss behind a closed door. Close-ups of Fred toward the end when he finds out Ginger is going to marry the Metaxa character. Fred Astaire looks more like JImmy Stewart in this one. We shared the dance numbers with the kids. Interesting how central a role cheating plays in this one. More believeable, this one. Again, those dresses. Must’ve been quite the pick-me-up during the Depression. Worth watching.
I enjoy watching my family do things I suspect other families do not but which I consider healthy. In this photo, all three of them are leaning out or about to lean out past the boardwalk rail in searching of jewelweed pods ready to pop.
It turns out the seeds are edible!
“Who is there among you who is wise and intelligent? Then let him by his noble living show forth his [good] works with the [unobtrusive] humility [which is the proper attribute] of true wisdom…But the wisdom from above is first of all pure (undefiled); then it is peace-loving, courteous (considerate, gentle). [It is willing to] yield to reason, full of compassion and good fruits; it is wholehearted and straightforward, impartial and unfeigned (free from doubts, wavering, and insincerity). And the harvest of righteousness (of conformity to God’s will in thought and deed) is [the fruit of the seed] sown in peace by those who work for and make peace [in themselves and in others, that peace which means concord, agreement, and harmony between individuals, with undisturbedness, in a peaceful mind free from fears and agitating passions and moral conflicts]” (James 3:13,17-18, AMP).
Thank You, God, for reinforcing the lesson: If you think you’re wise, you’d better be able to prove it with deeds.
It’s exult in our tribulations, not despite them (Romans 5:3). There’s a big difference. And it can, I think, make or break your faith.
“When informed that someone has achieved an American synthesis of Led Zeppelin and Yes, all I can do is hold my ears and say gosh.”
— Robert Christgau, of Boston (1976), in a capsule review makes me laugh out loud
“Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed” (Jesus, as reported in John 20:29).
I’ve always taken this saying of Jesus, along with several other beatitudes, as being some kind of moral judgment, in this case, that folks who trust Jesus without having to see Him are better people than those who need to see Him to believe. But that’s not what He is saying: Instead, it’s that the more credulous among us are happier, to be envied, as the Amplified Bible puts it. It’s true: If I didn’t feel impelled to study and intellectualize and apologize God, I’d be a much happier man.
Spending time with those good friends of ours in Pine Grove Mills is like eating comfort food.
I worry some my wanting to be the answers to my own prayers rather than merely praying them will be one of those revelations that doesn’t stick because I don’t implement it fast enough. But God, let it not be so. And it seemed to me to be the Holy Spirit who just said to me, “Hook your well-established system of doing it or queueing it to the impulses that come to you as you massage this new mindset into yourself.”
Current interpretation of the bits in James 1 and Romans 5 about persevering through trials: Perseverance through trials, even those that come in the form of intellectual challenges to the faith, breeds perseverance.
A locus of my anxiety about my religious doubt is my children. I have previously been so sure of God that I never worried about passing my faith on to them; I had what was in my mind a 100% sure platform on which to stand and call to them to join me. The thought of not being able to pass on to them something I know is true makes my stomach drop.
Doubt has humbled me and made more sympathetic. I could also swear it has made me more patient and loving with my family.
I’m tired of just praying. I want to be the answer to the prayers, especially the prayers for people, that I’m praying.
That means more phone calls, more letters, an earnest attempt to seek out the Maldives, etc.
To our surprise and disappointment, Council voted 3-2 to reject the ordinance as written. That settles the matter until at least after the next election; to insist Council take the matter up again any earlier would be inconsiderate and likely rejected.
How they can go from a consensus agreement at the previous public hearing to keep the chicken ordinance alive, directing staff to make specific modifications, to a 3-2 vote at this public hearing to completely reject the ordinance, staff having made the very modifications they specified, is baffling.
They remastered Aqualung in 2011, and somehow I missed it. Now, if only Ian Anderson had been less crotchety about God and religion.
I should take my commitment to eschew multitasking further: Instead of filling all the short periods of waiting that come frequently at work with some other task, take advantage of them to return to awareness of and communication with God.
Adversity is an essential raw ingredient for making good people.
Acts 26:8 is a phrase that contains the heart of the problems of using a Bayesian probability approach to the question of the Resurrection: “Why is it considered incredible among you people if God does raise the dead?” In other words, if you’re a theist, it isn’t that hard to believe in a resurrection. If you’re an atheist, then yes, obviously, it’s, um, unlikely, to say the least.
I am very proud to walk town with my children. Among several reasons that came to mind this evening, Éa insisted we take this photo of this 150-year-old magnolia tree planted by Fred Waring, the northernmost species of magnolia—because she loves her friend whose middle name is Magnolia.
I think it would be good to eventually get in the habit of reading my journal from a year ago, five years ago, and ten years ago to the day.
In the Clover Highlands during my prayer-walk today, I came away with this: The people in front of you at any given moment are the most interesting, fascinating people in the world. Certainly more interesting than myself. Act—and listen—accordingly.
Exactly one year ago today, I have down in my journal that you told me in a videochat that you were wanting a supernatural experience to help you firmly believe that Jesus is alive. I share that desire. Any luck? I’m reading a book on the subject you might find interesting.
An interesting question. If I’m honest, no, that hasn’t happened yet. I do, however, feel a bit less inner conflict between my desire for rational truth about the way the universe works and my faith, or culture, or whatever it is. Maybe I’m becoming more content with my inner discontent. Maybe I do have a relationship with God. We’re working it out.
For whatever it’s worth I’m meandering my way through Richard Rohr’s Everything Belongs and think it’s pretty interesting. One of the appealing aspects of modern Catholic thought is that they reconcile faith and thinking as a dualism rather than a battle. His book sometimes feels a little close to the edge of my tolerance for meaningless easternisms, but it’s...
// read full article →Yes, somewhere, somehow—and I pray it get deeper—I rejoice in sufferings, including recent doubts, and I lament my good fortune.
But trials bring about perseverance? That is a reversal of common sense.
I took an impromptu break from work late morning today to cuddle with Carla and tell her about the occasional pit in my stomach I’ve been feeling when ruminating on my doubts and when approaching the kids, or really about being wrong about anything. It was reassuring just to talk with her about it, to relate my fears and doubts to someone, and to hear in myself a commitment to endure in Christ-ward faith.