In the three thousand words or so below, you’ll find my long-gestating attempt to grasp why Jesus allowed Himself to be crucified and how His crucifixion achieved those aims. Or at least, you’ll find most of it: I cut the writing short. That’s because when it comes to disciplined, long-form argumentation, I may be the slowest writer I know. (Hence, despite a love for knowledge and understanding, I never pursued a PhD and probably never will.)
I typed the first word of what you’ll read below sometime in October 2022. As of the writing of the words of this paragraph, it’s late August 2024. At the rate I’ve been going, to get all my ideas out onto the page would take me another year. Yet every minute I spend writing this essay is a minute not spent relating directly to people or indulging my other expressive hobby, making music, which seems like I’ve all but ignored this entire time. I want to get back to that stuff, especially as both my kids are now in high school and my time with...
Hey!
You married him.
He’s always and in all ways gonna stay him.
Means he won’t leave ya,
But he’s prolly gonna grieve ya
Again and again and again. ✏️ 🎤 🎵
Just re-listened to: Carrie and Lowell (2015) by Sufjan Stevens. When Christgau wrote of this album, “How best expiate a conflicted grief? Surely something with more tensile strength than musical flower arrangements,” he did capture its aural beauty, but he clearly wasn’t listening to its devastating lyrics. As far as grief albums go, this one is better even than Funeral and Tonight’s the Night. My favorite Sufjan by a substantial margin.
Just listened to: The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow (2024) by Charles Lloyd. Easygoing, desultory, flute- or breathy-tenor-sax-led freeish modal jazz for inspiring hippies at night. Bonus point of interest: The esteemed saxophonist/flautist is 86!
Uncommitted time I anticipate with pleasure, but planned time I often anticipate with a low level of discontent, even if it’s time I planned for pleasure. Why is that?
[edit, 8/13/24]: I think it’s planned social time that evokes the mild discontent—and I think it’s because I still hold an idolatrous candle for solo productive time. After all these years, GTD is still my god. Sigh.
Just listened to: Silence & Music (2017) performed by Gabrieli’s “Rolls-Royce” of a choir, conducted here by their artistic director Paul McCreesh. This is fifteen 20th-century secular British partsongs exquisitely sung and perfectly recorded, thereby gratifying my anglophilia, audiophilia, and love for small-choir singing all at once. Hat tip to the late David Vernier for the recommendation.
Just listened to: Open Your Heart (2012) by The Men. Noisy, abrasive rave rock. Sometimes like Sonic Youth, but often faster and shoutier, hence punk-er. I like it best when droning, as in “Oscillation” and “Presence.”
Finished reading: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith (1999) by Anne Lamott. A funny, worthwhile, quotable episodic memoir. My only complaint is probably one directed at her editors: There are fewer thoughts on faith than its subtitle indicates.
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It’s hot night in Paris.
I’m dining out with Charis,
Trying to find Polaris
But I can’t. ✏️ 🎤 🎵
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Hypothesis: A big reason we love books, movies, and recorded music is that they offer to our lower brains a passable simulacrum of company. Inspiring, beautiful, mind-expanding they can be. But they are, at their root, an inferior substitute for basic emotional and relational goods that come from real, live, human company…
…writes the man whose wife of twenty years hasn’t been home in a week and is currently incommunicado on a sailboat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
“For then will I transform peoples with a pure language for them all to call in the name of the LORD, to serve Him with single intent” (Zephaniah 3:9, Alters).
Lord, please transform Christians in this way. As it is, it seems we’re calling in the name of different lords to serve with various, opposing intents.
Just listened to: Traditional Techniques (2020) by Stephen Malkmus. My first Malkmus solo album listen. His lyrics are as weird as in the ’90s, but I had no idea he could make such pretty music. A very good late-night psych-folk stoner album. The effect is similar to hearing The Velvet Underground’s self-titled album. Also, I’m a sucker for 12-string guitar and playfulness with words.
Productivity slash peace of mind hack #372: Use a custom stylesheet to hide all but the first item in any list on the web version of the to-do list app I use. Now the endless to-do list, so important to this man’s reliable participation in modern life but sometimes so very peace-ruffling by its sheer volume, presents itself to me just one task at a time.
