“Once we have despaired of all sin and the gods at their genesis, we are free. Really, truly free. To eat fat juicy steaks, for instance.”
Jared C. Wilson describes what he calls “the chocolate-ness of chocolate and the coffee-ness of coffee” in light of the gospel.
This isn’t priceless, but it’s close (via Facebook).
Any man who seeks God’s calling should pray the way Moses prayed. We should ask God to give us intimate knowledge of him. The things we do will be successful only if God is in them. Whenever we do something that God has called us to do—whether it is serving in our singleness, learning how to be married, working at a job, or getting involved in ministry—we need to pray that God will show us his way to go about things.
Philip Ryken, “2 Audacious Demands We Are to Make of God“
Man meets French woman, invents earpiece to talk to her.
Andrew Ochoa has invented a pair of ear inserts that can be shared between two people with the aid of a smart phone app. Once the earpieces are in place, you can speak in English, she can speak in French, and you will hear the translation in your ear.
I know, I know, I am a broken record about this stuff. But it never ceases to amaze me (in an unhappy way) how the so-called writers of Science Fiction, seem to be in such a huge hurry to run away from the roots of the field. I’ve read and listened to all the many arguments — pro and con, from both sides — about how Campbell rescued the field from the Pulp era, but then New Wave in turn rescued the field from the Campbell era. So it might be true that we’re finally witnessing the full maturation of SF/F as a distinct arena of “serious” literature, but aren’t we taking things too far? Does anyone else think it’s a bad idea for the field to continue its fascination with cultural critique — the number of actual nutty-bolty science types, in SFWA, is dwindling, while the population of “grievance degree” lit and humanities types, in SFWA, is exploding — while the broader audience consistently demonstrates a preference for SF/F that might be termed “old fashioned” by the modern sensibilities of the mandarins of the field?
Brad R. Torgersen, “The Martian and Mad Max“
English Nightingales don’t actually exist. They are migrants from Central Africa up in the north country for a bit of holiday. Most of them go to Europe, but some come from families that have always holidayed in England and they aren’t going to upset Grandma by suggesting the Black Forest or the Provence Alps (especially not after Freddie ran off with that scarlet thrush last autumn; Grandma’s barely gotten over that).
Musician Sam Lee holds special performances in the woods of southeast England where the nightingales sing around this time of year. “Lee’s show presented an opportunity to focus, fully, on what a nightingale actually sounds like, miles from the nearest road,” writes Sam Kinchin-Smith. “Much to my surprise, its stop-starting, self-counterpointing quality reminded me of nothing so much as James Brown’s ‘get on up’ scat.”
Hear that sound and read more about nightingales in Kinchin-Smith’s LRB piece.
In Act 3, Scene 3 of The Tempest, several ‘strange shapes’ bring in a banquet, on which Alonso proposes to feed. But Ariel, by means of a ‘quaint device,’ causes it to vanish and confronts them with their own sin: ‘But remember/(For that’s my business to you) that you three/From Milan did supplant good Prospero’ (3.3.68–70). The prospective feast becomes an act of remembrance, restoring a memory of themselves that disbars participation until that memory has restored them to repentance.
Peter J. Leithart spells out some of the details, drawing on David Aers and Sarah Beckwith essay on Holy Communion in Cultural Reformations.
My family has been spending many hours in the hospital lately, because my dad was admitted for what they thought was lymphoma at the time. Now it appears to be a different and more severe form of cancer. He’s had some other complications over the last two weeks, but they all seem fairly minor compared to the main threat. I’ve teetered back and forth on the likelihood of his overcoming it. Right now, I’m hopeful we will make it to the end of this blind alley and back into the sunlight without getting mugged.
He has made my flesh and my skin waste away;
he has broken my bones;he has besieged and enveloped me
with bitterness and tribulation;. . .
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.” (Lamentations 3:4 –5, 22–24 ESV)
I wholeheartedly endorse my Lord’s steadfast love and unceasing mercy, but I feel the wasting away more closely than ever.
Update: My dad passed away in the afternoon of May 14. Half of my family was there when his heart began to beat irregularly. My sister called me to say I should come to the hospital, which was the second such call this week, the first for breathing irregularities on Thursday. Ten minutes later, she called again to say he’s gone. Thank you for your prayers. He left an admirable legacy as a servant to his church, family, and community.
Russell Moore on the church in America and our intersection with public policies in today’s New York Times. We are not a majority white church anymore more nor should we want to be.
The Bible calls on Christians to bear one another’s burdens. White American Christians who respond to cultural tumult with nostalgia fail to do this. They are blinding themselves to the injustices faced by their black and brown brothers and sisters in the supposedly idyllic Mayberry of white Christian America. That world was murder, sometimes literally, for minority evangelicals.
Alan Noble talks about the politicization of our morals and how that has raised fences around our communities.
Politics do not (or at least should not) define us, but cultural values that are traditionally wrapped up in political movements impact our perception of our neighbor. If politicians and the pundits who support them regularly speak about immigrants as threats to our country or view poor minorities as drains on our economy, or if they mock Christian voters as backwards bigots and pro-life advocates as anti-woman, it shapes the way we envision one another. We grow skeptical of one another, hostile, and cynical. In a word, we become less neighborly.
Matt McCullough reviews Joseph Bottum’s An Anxious Age: The Post-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of America, which focuses on a newly developed class of self-righteous Protestants who have redefined redemption in social terms.
These folks aren’t self-consciously religious, though they may consider themselves “spiritual.” They blame the Protestant Christianity of their parents for much of what’s worst in the world. But if they’ve cast off their parents’ theological and ecclesial commitments, they have inherited a robust confidence in their own “essential moral rightness” (13). In fact, without the work of Christ or the fellowship of the church to fall back on, their sense of moral enlightenment becomes all the more crucial. It’s how they know their lives are justified; it’s how they know they belong among those who “get it.”
… They’re set apart as a class by their ability to recognize and personally reject the forces of evil—especially bigotry, militarism, oppression, and (sexual) repression. And they enjoy calm assurance that they’re insiders to a better world coming just around the corner.