All posts by Phil

Uncategorized

What You’re Feeling is Real, But maybe not What You Think it Is

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People started talking about cabin fever the day after their mayor or governor directed them to shelter in place. Maybe they are the folks who rarely stay at home for anything, those who dash off to the store, the crab shack, the boardwalk, the open road–anywhere at the drop of a hat. (For the kids at home, “the drop of a hat” is an expression from the days when adults wore hats daily and dropped them on the sidewalk, taxi seat, or chaise lounge several times a day. At those times certain people would do that thing they would do and, you know.)

Now that most of us are working from home or at least staying at home more than we would have been, we may find ourselves more irritable than normal. We may act and react with emotions we didn’t expect, and because of that, we may not feel okay (insert tangentially related song).

Some of us don’t know what to do with our emotions, dismissing them as temporal fancies that should be reined in at every moment. Or wishing they could be. We take our emotions as improper bursts of energy or simply the way we express ourselves. We see no meaning behind our feelings.

Continue reading What You’re Feeling is Real, But maybe not What You Think it Is →
Blogs, Socials, Religion

Pastoral Yoda Tweeting: Wise You Think You Are, Do You?

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If you’ve read any social media for long, you’ve run across the proverbial, possibly deep, possibly pithy statement from someone who wants to drop the truth on the world. When a Christian leader does this on Twitter, that’s called a pastor yoda tweet.

This isn’t the same as tweeting a quotation from a quotable writer, but it may be a statement made by one such quotable writer on his own account. He may even be quoted himself. Tim Keller quotes from his own books in an effort to say something strong that has a context that can been explored. Here are good examples of pastors and leaders who aren’t quoting themselves.

Ronnie Martin: “It has never not been our moment. #thechurchthatjesusbuilds”

Also Ronnie Martin: “A quiet, without a calm. These are times when ‘the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding’ is desperately needed for both personal comfort, and public compassion.”

Issac Adams: “A commitment to forbear with someone is a commitment, in no small part, to not pick nits.”

David Paul Tripp: “Today you face war, no, not with the people in your life, but a war of kingdoms, fought in your heart, that will not be fully settled until you’re on the other side.”

But of course there are those who would like to tweet proverbial wisdom and fail.

The Happy Rant guys have talked about good and bad tweeting a few times. Here’s one episode that talks about pastor yoda tweeting and also features a story about John Piper speaking to a crowd that completely misunderstood him. Here’s a recent one in which they worry about too much yoda tweeting.

Earlier this month, Taylor Burgess explained it well, “Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like you’ve got to be at least 40 before you drop one of those ‘young pastor, [insert wise proverb]’ tweets. Err’body out here trying to be Yoda when most of us are Attack-of-the-Clones Anakin.”

Bookselling, Uncategorized

Empty Streets

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The last time Vegas shut down was Nov. 23, 1963 out of respect for the death of a president. Yesterday Nevada’s governor said they needed to shut down for thirty days. People had been staying home for a while anyway.

“You see all these massive buildings that are meant to have 10,000 people in them and no one is there,” one interactive gaming exec said.

That means gamblers will have to find other ways to, uh, invest, like, say, the weather. Bookies are taking bets on high temperatures in select cities, rainfall, and events on American Idol. Of course, other countries have sports too, so maybe we’ll see a spike in soccer interest.

Two major movie theater chains have closed until better health prevails. I just learned my local library will be closed until April 1; they are encouraging us to use their digital borrowing service, Hoopla. Perhaps the librarians won’t have to go on unpaid leave, like those of retailer Tattered Cover of Denver, one of the largest independent bookstores in the country.

We’re living in troubling times. I’ve seen more people walking through our neighborhood, but the warm weather could have inspired that. Three of us took that walk after sunset tonight. Dark, empty streets can be nice.

Goofing

Comedy in Midst of Coronavirus

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This bit, called “The Funniest Sketch in the History of Sketch Comedy” by our friend Anthony Sacramone, is not a bit that could fly in our current day of keeping our distance and staying home to avoid infection. Happier days. Enjoy!

Writing

Keys to Mediocrity

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“Only the mediocre are always at their best.”

Jean Giraudoux

Having different strengths as individuals, we will take different writing advice, uh, differently. Put that on a t-shirt.

Thinking of my own strengths, I can point to two solid words of writing advice that have helped me maintain the level of mediocrity you’ve come to expect from my posts on this blog.

  1. No dedicated writing space. By using this laptop and my tiny desk for many activities aside from occasional mediocre writing, I encourage distraction and my habitual multitasking. I may be a fairly gifted multitasker, actually. I get all kinds of stuff done. Not thoughtful blog posts that build an enduring readership, but tasks, man! tasks get done. With a dedicated space, one can mold physical habits to aid the dedicated task, so when I sit down to write, I actually write. Often I open the blogger, and all my thoughts sneak out the back.
  2. No writing notebook. I’ve used writing a notebook in the past for many things, including review notes on books I read. I don’t think going back to any of that would interest me today, but notetaking helped me think and remember observations far better than my current non-method. I’ve had a few good blogging ideas recently that were nowhere to be seen later in the day. When I first thought of this post, I thought I could rattle off these other ideas, but no, I don’t have any other ideas. I am a stranger to them.

Now, I’m on the loveseat with the laptop and Splatoon on the big screen: no distractions at all, words flowing like cold butter.

Speaking of multitasking, I’ve avoided social media for a few weeks and feel somewhat liberated. I’ve fueled their accounts with too much of my attention.

Photo by Marcelo Novais on Unsplash

Music

The Dream I Knew

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While still I may, I write for you
The love I lived, the dream I knew.
From our birthday, until we die,
Is but the winking of an eye

W.B. Yeats wrote fondly of his native Ireland and the pagan faerie roots he supposed it has. These lines from his poem, “To Ireland in the Coming Times,” published in 1893. Composer Thomas LaVoy arranged the last stanza into this choral piece, performed by The Same Stream.

I cast my heart into my rhymes,
That you, in the dim coming times,
May know how my heart went with them.

Fiction

Living in Fantastic Times

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We have the privilege of living in a time when contemporary authors are creating quality fantasy stories that are funny and inspiring and that say true things. Adults and children need Jonathan Rogers’s feechie folk, S. D. Smith’s rabbits with swords, Jonathan Auxier’s courageous chimney sweeps, Andrew Peterson’s brave and flawed Wingfeather children, and others to incarnate truths for us. Battling the forces of evil and experiencing a “eucatastrophe,” a moment of redemption, with a character in a story gives us a glimpse of what it’s like to know goodness and love truth.

Ginger Blomberg, “Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga and Why We Need Fantasy”

My kids and I have enjoyed some of the books Blomberg commends. I reviewed a few in posts from days on the olden internet. Good fantasy is a marvelous thing, and these are good titles, if you haven’t looked into them. Links in the original article.

Coffee, Tea, Drinks

Ew, When Did You Last Wash that Mug?

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Starbucks, Intelligentsia, and Peet’s Coffee have stopped accepting a personal tumbler or mug in which to put your special brew. Concerns over spreading the coronavirus have lead to changed practices and a few store closures.

If you’re thinking all the talk of coronavirus sounds fun, I encourage you to skip this one. It’s a real drag; not like the old days when you could count a popular bug or flu to get things swinging. Ahem.

Your home or office coffeemaker could be hatin’ on you with mold and bacteria. A 2011 study found 50 percent of the coffeemaker water tanks tested had mold or yeast inside. The Chicago Sun-Times has recommendations for cleaning your favorite kitchen device as well as other nasty substances people have found in coffeemakers.

Panera hopes you’ll skip a germ-ridden cup o’ joe at home and have it with them instead. They have launched a subscription plan that will provide free coffee and tea to patrons willing to part with $9/month via the MyPanera app. Mary didn’t like it enough, though it could have advantages if it ran smoothly in your area.

Photo by Mazniha Mohd Ali Noh on Unsplash

Uncategorized

The Paradox of Authenticity

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Who are you, when you boil it all down? How do you act when you are most like you?

Although most people would define authenticity as acting in accordance with your idiosyncratic set of values and qualities, research has shown that people feel most authentic when they conform to a particular set of socially approved qualities, such as being extroverted, emotionally stable, conscientious, intellectual and agreeable.

This is the paradox of authenticity: In order to reap the many of the benefits of feeling authentic, you may have to betray your true nature.

Jennifer Beer in Scientific American

While seeking to be authentic is admirable, what may work against most of us is the suspicion that we don’t like who we are, and worse, that we shouldn’t.

Subject via Prufrock / Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Coffee, Tea, Drinks, Goofing

An Ode to Brewer’s Yeast and Its Produce

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Last Tuesday was Mardi Gras; next month we’ll see St. Patrick’s Day again. In this vein, allow me to point your attention to this Irishy nerd-fest on the chemicals that make up alcoholic beverages.