This is a pretty interesting, puffing sort of piece, telling the story of how Bernie Sanders got his money. He started out poor, like so many, and gradually, but very slowly, became rich, mostly by making sound real estate decisions, marrying someone with slightly more money than him, and trying to cope with his pile of credit card debt. Though really, it was his book, written in 2016, that made the money roll down like water and let all the... Read more
I’ve slept rather late, and so rather than surfing the internet, I’m going to just take all the words at my disposal this morning to belabor my thoughts and feelings about all the various cats hanging around in our house, and maybe the dogs too, who knows what may come bashing onto the keyboard. We have three cats, right now–one, at least by accident, two on purpose–and two dogs. Most everyone who reads this blog knows the saga of one... Read more
After chatting so freely about Church by the Glades yesterday, and their guacamole themed sermon and church service—for indeed, I don’t know if we said, but there was a huge screen on the stage with a picture of a bowl of guacamole overtaking the whole sacred event—Matt sent me a tweet picturing this fantastic comment and rating from someone who attended a service at this peculiar place: This is so wonderful, truly. It says in one pithy moment everything that... Read more
Hope you’re all praying for our lovely cat who is so old. She seems slightly better this morning, so someone must be praying. Even while we worry about her, we have taken the time to do a rather long podcast about how the gospel isn’t really like guacamole, and how the question of “packaging” the gospel is the wrong way to think about it, and what to do if a throuple comes to your church, and why the sermon even... Read more
I haven’t finished watching The Good Place. Every time I sit down someone interrupts me (please don’t spoil it) and I forget what I was trying to do. I don’t have time to finish watching this very well-done series, but I totes have time to click on the actors in that series when they trend on twitter. In this case, Jameela Jamil—noted beautiful person who, on the one hand, espouses hideous views on abortion, and, on the other hand, is... Read more
Well, Date Night is under assault yet again, this time from the Gospel Coalition and it’s Valentine’s Day, so let me at it. You don’t need date night, says the GC, for four reasons. It’s just a fun treat, it’s a modern, western invention (with a whiff of badness), it’s not always possible, and God can bless your marriage in many other ways. GC is able to arrive at this conclusion by framing date night this way: As married moms... Read more
I’m over at Stand Firm this morning, thrashing my way through the entirety of American culture. ****************************************************************************************** I have been mulling this article over for the last few days, finding it a curiosity that I can’t quite catch hold of, but can’t walk away from either. Indeed, it was actually the thing that made my word for 2020 take shape in my own mouth. The word is Decadent, in case you are too lazy to click on the link. In sum, there is a... Read more
I’m trying to work through that David Brooks piece which is so long it might as well be a book. But not the kind of book I would have set out to read. Anyway, I’m trying to get through it, and haven’t yet, because, like I said, it is freakishly long. I was toiling away through it in order, and then, out of frustration, skipped to the end, and then went back and read some of the middle. So, obviously,... Read more
Well, I didn’t watch the Oscars, thank goodness, because I would have died of boredom. But I did look at twitter after, and I really loved this tweet (I can’t embed, so click the link). I adore the idea of a sustainable diamond. I thought, when I saw “ethically sourced” somewhere, that that meant that slave labor hadn’t been used to get it. But I like it even better if it was, what do you call that, “recycled?” as in,... Read more
Good Morning. It is Monday, I’m pretty sure, so we’ve done a podcast about those Paul Washer and John Piper clips (links in a minute) and about Mr. Trump’s grand decree about how federal buildings should be beautiful again. I might have got a bit frothy at that point, and started ranting about church remodeling efforts–about which I was speaking generally, but Matt thought I was talking about our church. Honestly, our Aesthetic Cabal has done heroic work to make... Read more
Preventing Grace
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