The nice thing about an airship is that you don’t need a garage.

— Sullivan

I double down when I’m wrong? Wait. When am I ever wrong?

— Éa

You know, whoever came up with the term ‘dad jokes’ has clearly never met my mother.

— Sullivan

Éa: You’re very good at putting buns in. But you’re not very good at sleeping in them.
Carla: Build me up and tear me down! Build me up and tear me down!
Éa: At least you’re even!

I have been undisciplined about having fun the past couple days.

— Scott, rubbing his eyes

Any time I see people with AirPods in their ears, I can’t help but think they’re trying to save their half-eaten candy cigarettes for later.

Man, that piccolo really makes your biceps pop!

— Sullivan

You’re very American right now. I mean in a good way. Not in an overweight way.

— Éa, replying to Carla, who had just told Éa her outfit was very Swedish

I committed mass formicide in June. But only because they’d’ve conquered my house if I hadn’t.

Oh, that? That’s just smooth jazz. Nothing to worry about.

— Sullivan, replying to an inquiry over his headset while playing Minecraft one night

Scott: You can’t touch my face. I’m in quarantine.
Carla: Well, I can punch your face!

[upon realizing that her formerly farsighted right eye is no longer farsighted]

Am I going to get a monocle!?

— Éa, happily

Ooh, I know the website! It starts with ‘hit tips,’ ends with ‘dot com,’ and…something in the middle, but I forget.

— Éa

“Given the issue is so fundamentally important to our view of who we are, a claim that our free will is illusory should be based on fairly direct evidence. Such evidence is not available.”

— Benjamin Libet, in a 1999 quotation I found via a current article in The Atlantic today that blows away the Goliath in the room of the question of the soul

I don’t usually like what Katherine Watt writes. But this illustration is dynamite good.

Carla: [Saint] Paul totally bonked. He was a-bonkin!
Scott: Paul wasn’t bonking.
Carla: C’mon. You know he was bonking!
Scott: You are the strangest Christian wife I could have acquired.

On the interconnectedness of everyone and everything:

I live in a web of dependence, at the center of which is God in whom all things hold together (34).

That’s a good way to explain to myself how it is I can be grateful to God for everything that is good, including existence itself.

On prayer as worship:

Prayer is a declaration of dependence upon God (35).

An idea from my girlfriend my freshman year of high school returns: Making requests of God is a form of worship. It has proven one of those stick-with-you, life-shaping ideas. Thanks, Katie.

On emotion being teachable and malleable:

But consider what Rabbi Abraham Heschel said to the members of his synagogue who complained that the words of the liturgy did not express what they felt. He told them that it was not that the liturgy should express what they feel, but that they should learn to feel what the liturgy expressed.

My super-culture insists that emotions just happen and should not be repressed or feared. I agree with the overall message, thanks in no small part to Carla and to Milan and Kay Yerkovich, who wrote How We Love. But I don’t hear much from anyone about directing and changing emotion. Incidentally, I also...

“Trusting in God does not, except in illusory religion, mean that he will ensure that none of the things you are afraid of will ever happen to you. On the contrary, it means that whatever you fear is quite likely to happen, but that with God’s help it will in the end turn out to be nothing to be afraid of.”

— Jonathan Aitken, as quoted by Philip Yancey in Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?

“‘Come near to God and he will come near to you,’ wrote James, in words that sound formulaic. James does not put a time parameter on the second clause, however.”

— Philip Yancey

Distractions [in prayer] are nearly always your real wants breaking in on your prayer for edifying but bogus wants. If you are distracted, trace your distraction back to the real desires it comes from and pray about these. When you are praying for what you really want you will not be distracted.

— Herbert McCabe, as quoted by Philip Yancey

But consider what Rabbi Abraham Heschel said to the members of his synagogue who complained that the words of the liturgy did not express what they felt. He told them that it was not that the liturgy should express what they feel, but that they should learn to feel what the liturgy expressed.

— Ben Patterson, as cited in Philip Yancey’s Prayer

Carla cried “tiring” to hear my say that yet another purely social gathering was without a point. But I stand by it: I don’t want to invest time in people except insofar as it builds Your kingdom, God. I feel excited to cultivate our relationships with some folks because the growth of Your kingdom among us when we gather is effortless. I’m not looking for people with whom I simply have an enjoyable time; I’m looking for people with whom I can say, Look! God is among us doing stuff.

At the level of the individual, there is wisdom in my friend’s aversion to marriage, which she stated the other day as “I don’t know why people would want to get married.” I prefer to reword it as: “Don’t make a commitment you don’t think you can keep.” But at the level of society, there needs to be a complementary wisdom: Cultivate people who are capable of making lifelong commitments.

“Prayer is a declaration of dependence upon God.”

— Philip Yancey

My new motto in life is: If it’s not worth doing for free, it’s not worth doing!

— Carla, to Frank