In an effort to avoid the internet today I’m going to complain, briefly, about the selling of pumpkin decorations in stores long before the joyful harvest is actually being hauled home. Instead of starting school yesterday—because, well, why start one day when you can start the next, or the one after that—I took my oldest child and trotted off to a bright shiny home goods store to replace our stash of tea cups. It happens every eight months or so.... Read more
File this away under Extremely Depressing. It caught my eye because of the very relevant, to me, and probably to the whole world, sermon text from Sunday. We’re working our way slowly through the gospel of John and have got to the end of chapter three after wending our way through the strange Nicodemus saga. Nicodemus is left there in the dark and suddenly the reader is reminded of John the Baptist and his brand wrecking decision to move his... Read more
Happy Labor Day! It’s a bright, sultry day and we’ve smeared away the sweat and done up a nice little podcast about Andy Stanley and Donald Trump. It’s all the things you could possibly hope for. All of them. And now links. This looks like it might be an interesting book. This is extremely wise. This is a pretty nice rant. This is funny. This dog wins the internet. This was interesting. This is interesting about Tolkien. This looks gorgeous... Read more
Perhaps many of you who wander around the highways and byways of social media came across this extraordinary claim this past week. It is a snapshot of an enormous billboard featuring three cheerful, happy looking African American women, and in clear block lettering next to them, “Black women can take care of their families by taking care of themselves. Abortion is self-care. #TrustBlackWomen” It’s like Margaret Sanger ghoulishly rose again from the grave and came back to have a job in advertising.... Read more
Might as well confess to spending a few snatched moments this week biting my nails over the woes of the Roman Catholic Church. Besides being really depressing, and in the case of that Cupich character completely appalling, it has only entrenched me in my natural inclination to talk more about the depravity of humanity rather than any kind of creaturely goodness we might find lying around in a dark cupboard. I mean, remember in the dim recesses of your Bible... Read more
Gosh I’ve got so much to do. I have seriously tried to look for interesting things to read and think about but you know what, AGHHH. That’s the spiritual substance of my person today. Why? you ask. Well, more than half the country has started school, and the other goodly portion will begin before I have time to blink three times. AND I have a big pile of paper strategically teetering in the true center of the floor so that... Read more
I need to stop looking at headlines at night, or in the morning, or on my phone at mid-day. Truly, I need school to start so that I’ll technically be too busy to even glance at the cultural devolution tripping lightly along down the broad way that leads to candy, popsicles, and million degree weather. But since I already did look, and as usual don’t really want to wade into the actual muck, but prefer to skirt along the edges,... Read more
In the new disorienting social media enforced orthodoxy, there is a refrain that almost everyone has to employ, at regular intervals, and without fail, as one of the last vestigial safeguards against being chucked out on your ear by any hovering mob. It is the innocuous but life saving, “I don’t agree with everything X says, but…” after which disclaimer you may go ahead and retweet or link or quote what X said that you do agree with. It is... Read more
It’s another fine gray hot day in Binghamton, the perfect day for moving into our bat free attic. In that spirit of celebration and joy we’ve done up a little podcast of pro tips—bat removal pro tips, mourning the dead pro tips, being the pope pro tips, and how to figure out what the gospel actually is pro tips. It’s the meme we needed for this strange and unusual time. Enjoy! Didn’t read much online out in the wilderness so... Read more
A certain podcaster to whom I have been listening for the last month, and who shall continue to go unnamed by me for the moment, regularly distills the gospel down to the following bleak formula: Love God and Love your Neighbor. After all, Jesus said it himself in Mark 10. When asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” it was the answer he gave, only a little more elegantly, in that he himself responded with a question about... Read more
Preventing Grace
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