Is it Friday? Looks like it. After a week of excessively light blogging, let’s see what we have. One I know I’ve said this before but I am really annoyed with how Facebook has changed its algorithm yet again to suppress the plain posting of links. It is so annoying to have to cut the link into the comments, instead of straight into the post. I tried it the old-fashioned way yesterday out of haste and it showed up in... Read more
Hahaha, our tent doesn’t look like this. Thing One My very dear grandfather is turning 100 years old today! I haven’t gotten to see him in quite a while because he lives in California. Here’s that wonderful day we got to spend with him, though, so many years ago. My dad pointed out this morning that besides being in the war and flying airplanes, he was a teacher. He taught Bible School in Nigeria, in South Africa, in Belgium, and... Read more
Jesus taking the NYTimes quiz to find out whether or not he is “flourishing.” Well, the world is stupid, so I’m gonna spend this important blogging moment taking the New York Times Flourishing Quiz to find out if I’m really flourishing or not. I guess I should take the time to know, because, as we all know, not flourishing is a grave sin. Let’s get started, shall we? Here’s the introduction to the quiz: The first step toward better overall... Read more
I took these flowers to Synod and then brought them home again because I’m selfish like that. It appears I accidentally took a several-day blogging break. And no podcast either. So many things conspired to ruin our routine. First, we got a kitten: We’re thinking of naming him Albert in order to keep with the theme that started with our first cat, so long ago. She was Frances, and the first familial casualty to the era of covid. Frances in... Read more
I haven’t got a lot of time this morning because, well, we complicated everything by getting a kitten. So, here are two things for Thursday. The First Thing Apparently, people online are arguing again about David and Bathsheba, some people suggesting that David “assaulted” Bathsheba. I wrote about this two years ago (briefly) so I’ll just quote myself: The text treats both of these women as 1. Human and 2. Adult neither of which the current victim narrative allows. Bathsheba... Read more
This guy doesn’t look scary. In my wandering around the internet, I found this, a very anxiously fearful and I would say inflammatory amount of reporting from Salon.com about a possible ruling from the Supreme Court about foster care and religious liberty. The title, for example–This Supreme Court Case Could Fundamentally Alter LGBTQ+ rights and not in a good way–feels a touch hysterical. After a while it kind of tones down and we get this: Under the establishment clause of... Read more
Mother Earth waiting for us to go away and leave her alone. Somehow I missed this yesterday. Quite liked the video. If you happen to click the link, I totally recommend it. But then don’t be like me who stupidly kept scrolling and to see the usual strange reactions. Some were crying with joy. Others were thrilled that English people might be really angry and enraged right now (? where is the emoji of me scratching my head?) because Harry... Read more
It is a very hot–very hot–day here in the Northeast, and I, who generally love this sort of thing, am considering where I might go to escape from it. Too bad I have a lot of work and can’t go move into the freezer section of some already very cold cold place. To cope, we’ve done a shortish podcast about why you should get rid of your pride for pride month, how to try, and why shame and humility are... Read more
I’m over at Stand Firm this morning. I have been pretty good about staying off Twitter, but I did just have a peak yesterday. There is some person taking the trouble to screenshot the Twitter profiles of major corporations. Apparently, you don’t just have one single Twitter handle, you have one for every geographical branch of your company. So, for example, BMW has one official Twitter address, but then a separate one for Dubai. Other companies the same. One for... Read more
Don’t worry, I’m not going to talk about Pride all month, even though it is the liturgical time so to do, but I do just want to respond to this Facebook post: I hesitated to post about pride month. Then I sat with an ex-gay camp survivor. Yesterday a closeted Presbyterian pastor told me about his time at Love in Action, a residential pray-the-gay-away program in Memphis. He shared a particularly painful story of a 15-year-old boy forced to attend... Read more
Preventing Grace
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