Currently, there are only five Christmas albums I can listen to all the way through with pleasure:
Buildings have walls
Only by necessity ✏️ 🎤 🎵
“All a man’s ways are pure in his eyes, but the LORD takes the spirit’s measure” (Proverbs 16:2). The first part isn’t true of everyone all the time. But it’s probably true of everyone some to most of the time. And certainly very often true of me. Lord, help us to discern.
I cannot reliably control my circumstances. I cannot at all control other people. But I can control my (current) self. Herein lies happiness.
A truism, perhaps. But one worth repeating, especially to someone like myself who scores, mostly to his chagrin, as an 8 on the Enneagram.
Just re-listened to A King and His Kindness (2021) by Caroline Cobb. My favorite nuthin’-but-Jesus album since Rich Mullins’ 1997 demo tapes. Definitely square and very devout, hence the kind of album my enjoyment of which will lose me cool points with just about everyone I can think of. But these are the kinds of songs that make you not give a damn about cool points.
Proverbs also very frequently locates wisdom in how we receive correction.
Proverbs so often puts the locus of wisdom on what we say.
Our culture’s current and very understandable hangups about the injustice of forgiveness can be resolved by defining it as threefold:
That list is not only a division, but also perhaps a progression: First, in very clear obedience to our Lord and to keep our communities and society from tearing themselves to shreds, we refuse to retaliate, despite our probably justifiable anger.
Second, and perhaps only as (a lot of) time passes but facilitated by both free ventilation and the wrongdoer’s repentance, we moderate our anger until it thoroughly dissipates. This part is an art, not a science: In the knowledge that we’re all quite capable of sin and likely blind to some of our own wrongdoing, we constantly tack toward total abatement of animosity and we refuse to cling to ill will; however, knowing that there are indeed things God hates, neither...
// read full article →There are many kinds of love. The most extraordinary kind is the love God has for us—it’s eternal. And then there’s the love parents have for their kids—bigger than you can possibly imagine. There’s friend love, which can be magical, but it can also change over time. And then there’s married love. This kind of love is extraordinary, because it requires so much, and also gives more than you can imagine.
— Amy Low, to her kids • “New Eyes” (2024), an essay published in Comment
I preached a meditation on hope in the New Testament to help the folks of University Baptist & Brethren Church ring in the first Sunday of Advent. (Here’s video evidence.)
“Roman Catholic” is an oxymoron.
There is a very fine line between abstruseness and nonsense. And neither writer nor reader can distinguish for sure.
Just re-listened to Electric Warrior by T. Rex (1971). I know it’s only rock ’n roll. But I like it.
If your hope for heaven holds that nothing you do here matters, then to hell with it.
Heaven is not a judgement-free zone.
Just re-listened to A Home and a Hunger (2017) by Caroline Cobb. Very devout singer-songwriter Bible stuff that sounds like a fledging, lady Andrew Peterson. Gabe Scott’s tasteful CCM production, including bouzouki, banjo, lapsteel, dulcimer, and dobro, helps make that comparison. More Bibley than Peterson. Highlights: “There Is a Mountain,” “All Is Vanity (Ecclesiastes),” “Emmanuel (Every Promise Yes in Him),” and “Only the Sick Need a Physician.” Two of the other numbers cry out for a full-on gospel music treatment. I’m glad talented lyricists are still writing very Christian (instead of merely theistic) songs for the church and getting good production value.
Here are the correct answers for “What are the best performances of Ravel’s Boléro on disc?”
In case Spotify goes out of business by the time you’re reading this, here’s a text-only list of the same, sequenced least best (but still quite good) to best:
One of the reasons—maybe the main reason—I find the built environment in Europe more charming that in the U.S. is the relative lack of billboards and overhead power lines.
I realized the other week that I didn’t own a copy of a recording of Rhapsody in Blue. That felt un-American, so I went shopping. I listened to the following eleven renditions in search of one to buy:
Kitchen towels are much more effective at soaking up water if, instead of constantly moving them around, you let them rest. My attention is a kitchen towel.
I don’t feel at work the stress I feel at home, where stress accompanies not only the drive to get things done, but even the desire for recreation!
Why the difference? I’m not certain. But my surmises are several:
Might I import those circumstances into my non-DiamondBack life? Yes. And in :
I tend to hold in tension my intentions with your own ✏️ 🎤 🎵
I make lists. Here’s one: “Scriptural snippets that may indicate everyone makes it to The Party.”
Here’s my latest working definition: “forgive”
“Hold fast to reproof, don’t let go. Keep it, for it is your life” (Proverbs 4:13, Alters). Lord, may I cherish correction.