I’m ripping off that great old Onion headline, obviously. Remember? Something about the 911 terrorists surprised to find themselves in hell. It was back in the bad old days when you could still talk about evil–like the terrorists were evil–and it had some kind of meaning that made sense. But at that critical moment, when the soul of the nation was given the opportunity to consider who it was and what it wanted, it–and notice I’m using some sort of... Read more
We drug ourselves out of a deep and refreshing sleep and put together a nice little podcast for the beginning of your week. All about race in America, Trump, the new Trumpian Religion, and how to be a better parent. Do your kids interrupt and irritate you? So do ours. Enjoy! As for links, I collected tons over the last week. But first, I just love this. And this. Love it. And this. So good. And this was nice. And... Read more
The most difficult thing in the world in the world, I often think, is to face the reality of evil head on. One of the reasons I struggle any longer to “enjoy” social media is that I can’t bear to watch videos and see pictures of the destruction and devastation of people, intermingled with the light and diverting. I scroll along, looking at funny memes and cat videos, and suddenly there are the eyes of a young girl who has... Read more
I am going to take the occasion of this horrid illness–which I am upgrading from cold to flu because of the presence of an actual fever and the increasing desire for death to overtake me–to move the Day of the Podcast from Saturday to Monday. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while. When I drew up our school schedule I was delighted to find that I might actually be able to have Saturday as a day unburdened from... Read more
How the mighty, or rather, the moderately functional, have fallen. I have a bad head cold. Really bad. Like, lying in bed not able to move bad. I’m not sure how this happened since nobody else that I know is sick. The children are all annoyingly healthy. Matt is a picture of strength and virtue. The dogs are all running around as if life isn’t a veil of tears. I say dogs, plural, because of course two dogs is more... Read more
Facebook, who cares about me and my memories (and I thank God that I did not seriously suffer in the last seven years so that I am happy to remember all the stuff that Facebook wants to call to my mind; every morning I look at their chosen memory I try to pray a quiet prayer for anyone out there who opens his feed, or indeed hers, and is reminded of something devastating; seriously, I am one tragedy away from... Read more
I am typing this to the dulcet sounds of Matt’s early morning work out. Each word is punctuated by a weight banging down on the floor. Fortunately he has nice heavy matts so that the carpet isn’t being destroyed. Later he is going to come up here and think that we should go on a walk, so that I can keep getting into “the best shape of my life”, but little does he know that I have woken up with... Read more
The pressure of thinking a thought is too much for me this morning. I’ve listened to some bible, scrolled through the Internet, and I’ve found two whole moments of consequence. First there is this–a pig walking a cat. I mean for real. There are two pigs and a cat and one of the pigs is attached to the cat. They are all walking down a sidewalk. It’s the best thing I’ve ever witnessed, including the births of all my children. And... Read more
Today I’m going to organize the basement so that I don’t have to unpack it. It’s going to be awesome. And I’m going to settle into the reality that now Monday’s are a half school day. That too is going to be awesome. I can’t face actually reading about that horrible euthanasia thing, or the bombing thing, or any of the other weird things humanity did over the weekend. Instead, I’ll go on about some things that fell nicely into... Read more
I might have recently admitted here that I’ve not been living much of a Victory in Jesus life of prayer. I always mean to pray, as I grope my way into each anxiety laden morning. I have the best of intentions. But by the time I am collapsing into bed at the end of the day I’ve found that the whole enterprise slipped through my fingers. Or rather my mind. This is very bad. A Christian who doesn’t pray is... Read more
Preventing Grace
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