Roughly my sophomore year in college, I started using Georgia for school papers instead of Time New Roman. Why? Because it’s bigger at the same point size, hence easier to get to “four pages, double-spaced, size 12 font.” (Not to mention it’s easier on the eyes.)
May all of our eros be agapified.
To insist it is my civic duty to read about, think about, and talk about tyrants only augments their tyranny. Ignoring tyrants is my preferred mode of protest. NB: This is not the same as saying I will ignore the effects their tyranny has on my neighbors.
Watching this classic macOS screensaver featuring the cover art of the CDs I own is the closest I come to swimming through piles of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck.
A movie and dinner > dinner and a movie. More to talk about and less trouble falling asleep that night.
The degree to which you don’t buy the fundamental idea I put forward in this essay that amends are necessary for a just forgiveness is the degree to which you can stand even more amazed at the love of Jesus in subjecting Himself to crucifixion to provide that (proxy) amends. You may not believe amends are necessary for forgiveness (and if you don’t, that itself may be an indication of Jesus’ ideological success), but Jesus’ contemporaries and forbears did think so. If the idea is mere cultural contingency rather than ethical fact, that only makes Jesus’ sacrifice all the more amazing in its condescension—and thus more apt as reason to sit at His feet and align yourself with His overall ethical program.
Some introspection while walking home from a nighttime walk with Matt after an evening when I failed miserably to bring together a cohesive Spring Break plan for the family:
Too often at home and at church and, historically at least, at work, I stand opposed to and suspicious of what’s being brought by others. Blame eighteen years as an academic. (I’m using that term very loosely to include K-12 and undergraduate.) Blame a natural bent of my mind.
But that’s not what’s gonna get it done. When I say “it,” I mean togetherness, I mean unity of vision and will. I mean a sense of belonging and cherishing. I mean laughter.
No, what I need if I want those things at my kitchen table, in church, and at work is the “Yes! And…” spirit of improv. Bring myself and what I have to offer in a positive sense, sure—and honor that which others bring of themselves. “Yes, that’s right! And we can do this…” That’s so good. That’s the way.
I will hazard an unsubstantiated guess that two-parent families in which only one parent participates in the full-time workforce are, on average, healthier, happier families as families than ones in which both parents do.
“Having different gracious gifts, according to the grace given us: if prophecy, according to the proportion of faithfulness…” (Romans 12:6, DBH). If Hart’s translation is correct, then one should prophesy in proportion to one’s demonstrated faithfulness, not according to one’s faith, the latter word being the majority translation in this context vacant of meaning.
In other words, only prophesy if your deeds warrant you time with the microphone.
“But to have spoken once is a tyrannous reason for speaking again.”
— George Eliot • Daniel Deronda (1876)
The Year of the Snake. How appropriate.
Man, do I feel done with movie and TV watching. Just a phase, I’m sure. But still: No appeal whatsoever.
Alas, I’ll be in Vegas
For the tenth or eleventh time ✏️ 🎤 🎵
But Lord, I had noble pretexts! ✏️ 🎤 🎵
Jane Doe?
I never knew her ✏️ 🎤 🎵
One option for fitting together the forgiveness on offer from God: If forgiveness is nothing more than disavowal of hatred and claims to requital or punishment, then He judges us, but He does not sentence us. And He always, always loves us and never hates us. It is still a terrible thing to fall into it. Fire and fear, and all that. But no punishment other than the mortification of being seen.
What shall we do with the decaf tea?
What shall we do with the decaf coffee?
Nobody drinks it except me
And if I drink it, I can’t sleep ✏️ 🎤 🎵
“Should” is a word with real, live uses
Granted, it’s seen its share of abuses ✏️ 🎤 🎵
I wanna do everything
Without doing anything ✏️ 🎤 🎵
How I agree with Hardin:
- The Father did not kill Jesus.
- The Father did not abandon Jesus to crucifixion because He was angry with humanity.
- Jesus’ crucifixion, rightly understood, puts an end to blood sacrifice. (Note the torn curtain.)
- We are to imitate Jesus.
- The Father does not like blood or violence.
How I disagree with Hardin:
- Making amends, which is what some of the Levitical sacrifices, including the big one (Yom Kippur) were all about, is good and right.
- God instituted, or at least did not contradict Jewish belief that He instituted, the Levitical sacrifices.
- Jesus’ death affirms the logic of the Levitical sacrifices as just even if it simultaneously exposes their form (violence against innocent victims) as unjust.
- It is unclear to me what Hardin can make of John the Baptizer’s insistence that Jesus was the “lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29,36).
Part of 1 Corinthians 16 is as a good a motto as one can find: “Do everything in love.” Since so much of my life comprises words, and since the biblical proverbialists, Jesus, and James all emphasize the power and importance of our words, I’m going to provisionally subset the motto to concentrate its effect: “Say everything in love.”
Cheerful, curious, grateful, harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, humble. That’s what I want to be.
“What does that third switch control?”
“I thought you knew!”
“I don’t know!” ✏️ 🎤 🎵
“What does that third switch control?”
“I thought you knew!”
“I don’t know!”
“Go ahead and flip it”✏️ 🎤 🎵
There is a man from Klinger Heights
Who keeps the good of man in sight
Always wants to please the Lord
And as a result, is never bored
His birthday today, we won’t say which
«cough 46!» Oop! That was a glitch.