Being of tired mind and limping body, I’m going to fling around some quick takes and hope for the best. Maybe I’ll get farther than yesterday’s pathetic attempt to say nothing at all in fifteen paragraphs. What’s that you say? Why not just not write for one day? Oh ah. Of course. But if I don’t write something, I will cease to feel human. And it’s all about the feelings, man. One So, Ms. Hatmaker, after blowing up the Christian... Read more
I have the mind of a squirrel this morning–unable to settle on anything, only flitting back and forth between a hundred and fifty things I know I have to do. In moments like this I always hope the Internet will provide me with some focused provocation to concentrate and untangle my mental spaghetti. And really, the gentle stream of foolishness is usually always there for me. Except, for whatever reason, this morning there is so much outrage, of such alarming... Read more
I like to think I’m on the cutting edge of these cultural times, but really, the only reason I know about anything anywhere is because of my friends very kindly linking everything on Facebook. Facebook is the town crier of our times. It’s the place where you find out news, where you discover the new celebrity, and where you can virtue signal your up to date theology and social concern. So a few months ago I did hear about the... Read more
It was fitting that I had to go to the dentist yesterday, being in the mood I was, and continue to be. The sovereign providence of God does stuff like that to me all the time. An appointment is made six months in advance, in an innocence of ignorance–for we know neither the day nor the hour about anything–and then I am surprised to find myself in the wholly appropriate place, and have to concede that God does know everything.... Read more
Easter, in the Anglican way, lasts for seven weeks–longer than Lent, longer than you think it’s going to, longer than Advent and Christmas put together. It’s the time between the Resurrection and Pentecost. Pentecost is when the Holy Spirit arrives on the scene and everyone can go back to the long season of boring green and the endurance of ordinary time. Ordinary Time is easy because it’s just where you are, whether you are feasting or fasting. And seven weeks... Read more
The Christian Life, when lived properly, should feel like one long, afflictive Marshmallow Test. Surely by this point everyone has seen YouTube clips of very small children squirming around in a chair, in a blank white room, faced with a marshmallow and fifteen minutes of uninterrupted quiet. Eat the marshmallow now, if you like. But if you wait, you can have a second marshmallow. Whoever carried out this brilliant experiment discovered, of course, that the children who could wait for... Read more
Being so behind the cultural times, as I am, I never find out about famous people until they are dead. So also with Prince, of whom, of course, I had heard, but not his actual music or anything. So I’ve been struggling along trying to listen to some songs and understand something about anything. But first here’s the official podcast of this blog. And Matt’s excellent sermon from Sunday (not about Prince). And a little explanation of why so many... Read more
One On Friday mornings the boys and Matt go to men’s bible study, leaving me with a jealous and needy Kylo Ren–jealous of the iPad, needy for constant affirmation about who he is, even though who he is is really really irritating at 6:30 in the morning. “He has a broken look in his eyes,” I said to Matt. “Broken? He doesn’t look broken. He looks evil.” “That’s what I mean,” I said, “you look in his eyes and there’s... Read more
I perhaps touched an angry and inflamed nerve last week, when I suggested, after reading a ridiculous article at Salon, that one way women can avoid children is by not having sex, and, moreover, that saying so isn’t to turn them suddenly into infants. Au Contraire, I intimated, though not in French, exercising self control and not giving in to every whim and fancy is a strong thing to do. People who live in celibacy do so as adults with strength... Read more
“I’m fine with you being a little bored,” I said to my youngest child last night as she contemplated the horror of an entire evening without the use of an electronic device to calm her twitching fingers. “You could play, you could look at some books. Hey, if you want, you could just go straight on up to bed and go to sleep.” “I’m not a little bored, ” she wailed, her voice hovering over the precipice of defiance, “I’m... Read more
Preventing Grace
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In