It’s going to be pouring rain all day, even with rumblings of thunder, which means that I might as well stay inside and blog. Anything to keep from cleaning the house. How bout some takes. One This little list/picture is so funny. The things this person thinks should be cleaned every day are astonishing to me, never mind the week and month and year. Matt thought it might be humanly possible if that was the only thing you did. Like,... Read more
The First Thing I love the pictures in this piece, short as it is. The one of Kim Jong Un and Putin on the escalator is priceless. Also, how the mouth hangs slightly open at all times. Also the fear at the back of the eyes. Also the terrible haircut. Meanwhile, Putin looks like a sane grownup. Never thought I would say that, please don’t accuse me of colluding with Russia. One thing I do love about politics right now... Read more
I am waiting for Elphine (not her real name) to finish The Last Chronicle of Barset so I can have a turn, which means I’ve been futzing about with those freebies you get on Audible every month, whiling away the time on the light and fluffy because that’s where I am in my spirit. So I’ve been listening to the very short Elizabeth II: Life of a Monarch, and I must say, I’m pretty depressed. The royal century starts out... Read more
This is a nice article, and dovetails nicely with Cat. Influencing, says the first, is an old game, but we live with it to an unprecedented, and increasingly alarming, degree. You should read the whole piece. And of course, Cat is talking about blogging and how it is fairing in the age of social media. The word I hate, though, is Thought Leader. In the middle of Holy Week, my sluggish intellect tried to trace out another word that used... Read more
Happy Easter Monday! That cat and I are one in spirit. Nevertheless, in our true and complete fog of fatigue, we took on that ridiculous Nicholas Kristof interview in the New York Times, the one where he asks the president of Union Theological Seminary a bunch of good questions that stymie her. I was too tired even to remember where the place is—I think I wondered if it is in Philadelphia—but we didn’t let that stop us from saying all... Read more
Alleluia! He is Risen! As many of you know, if you have happened to see any news all week, on Monday evening Notre Dame in Paris caught fire and the wooden interior of the church burned almost completely. A lot of movable art, relics, and other artifacts were carried out, and the rose window and iconic bell towers, and, indeed, the whole stone structure of the church, remain intact, but millions of dollars of valuable history is gone, poof, in... Read more
Going to be offline today. Here is my favorite hymn (or one of them), paired by a stranger with the last picture taken in our old church, the day we moved out and handed over the keys. It is a mosque now, and the pews have been taken out to make way for prayer rugs. Building don’t really matter, of course. The church is the body of faithful believers from every age and place, through time, joined together invisibly. Around... Read more
In the early mornings this week, as I’ve struggled (Christian word for fail) to get my whole mind into the daylight, I’ve run into several articles about James MacDonald and Harvest Chapel—this one is long and detailed. I don’t quite understand all the ins and outs and implications, except that a lot of money is being talked about, more than I can personally fathom right this moment. And all the while the refrain from Sunday’s passion reading, “Let him save... Read more
[Jesus, irritated after spending 10 minutes on google looking for the existence of himself.] It’s almost Easter, and so on cue here is a scolding and yet surprisingly dumb article about how everything you know about Jesus from the Bible isn’t true “because Bart Ehrman” (that’s my short summary in case you don’t feel like actually reading it). Did you know, for example, that that exhausting search in the 90s for the ‘historical Jesus’ didn’t turn anything up? That one where... Read more
Binghamton is having a new hotel—at least, that’s what appears to be taking shape on that long stretch of highway that is the property of every American town, the one that houses big box stores and parking lots, woods and nature huddling untended behind the unquenchable thirst for fast car washes, cheap clothes, and sugary coffee. Every Monday evening all this year I have had to drive down that wasteland of road and so have observed a flimsy rectangular box... Read more
Preventing Grace
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