August 2011
26 posts
“Denial and distraction are the standard over-the-counter prescriptions of our...”
– Eugene H. Peterson, Leap Over a Wall, p. 120 (via TJ Walsh)
“Whatever may be wrong with us, we are not benumbed and television-besotted. Why...”
– Marilynne Robinson, Commencement | College of the Holy Cross (via T19)
Would that more liberal Christians were actually as liberal as Robinson. Several good thoughts here on place and religion.
“Every form of communication, for McLuhan, presents a temptation to idolatry. Its...”
– The New Atlantis » Why Bother with Marshall McLuhan? by Alan Jacobs
Very helpful and amusing. I have tried to read McLuhan and failed before. This essay offers a very good explanation why.
“Furthermore, what makes a “place” durable is not merely a loyalty to its past,...”
– The New Atlantis » The Particularities of Place by Wilfred McClay
Read it all. Helpful and not nostalgic.
“But for me, thinking about the idea of a “story-shaped life,” I can’t be...”
– Five Questions For: Wesley Hill, On The Story-Shaped Life (Part 1) | S.D. Smith
This is extremely helpful in giving words to what I want to teach my children about approaching life.
“But for catholic doubters, God is not subject to my doubts. Rather, like the...”
– Jamie Smith (via wesleyhill)
3 tags
“Pain that is not transformed is transmitted”
– Richard Rohr (via digitaldion)
“These three ideas, of specificity, of values and of authenticity, are at odds...”
– Edward Docx, Postmodernism is dead | Prospect Magazine
Interesting article overall. I dispute his assertion that a focus on the -isms has been wholly positive. Significantly positive, sure, but there are some serious issues, many directly related to and mutually reinforcing the “crap”...
1 tag
“The public has a distorted view of science, because children are taught in...”
– How We Know by Freeman Dyson | The New York Review of Books
“Adult life begins in a child’s imagination.”
– Dana Gioia : ‘Trade easy pleasures for more complex and challenging ones’
2 tags
“Where sadness is expunged from a culture, the cry for justice falls silent....”
– Benjamin Myers, Faith and Theology: On smiling and sadness: twelve theses
This is number 9. Most of them are solid.
4 tags
“Peace is about finding your place.
Your place may not be comfortable. It may...”
– Eve Tushnet (via wesleyhill)
The more I ponder this the more I like it. It fits with what I’m currently reading in Wendell Berry’s Hannah Coulter. Love grows from place. And making beauty seems increasingly to be the best response Christians can make to the questions thrown at them by...
“In case you weren’t depressed by this data, the University of Washington...”
– Jonah Lehrer, Why Are Scientific Retractions Increasing? | Wired Science
“Convinced,” “progresses”? Scientists are humans. Science is no unerring path to truth. There is no escape from the need to exercise judgment and interpretation.
“I have seen, in our schools and youth groups, what happens to children when you...”
– Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks - We’ve been here before and there is a way back
3 tags
“… a Trinitarian perspective can be only an enlargement and development of a...”
– Lesslie Newbigin
“Now that I’ve seen the film, I’m glad I did, even though, at eighty minutes,...”
– The Human Face of Type by Edward Mendelson | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books
“The concrete particularity of life shimmers with the power of reality, a power...”
– “For Love and Loyalty” by R. R. Reno « EerdWord
1 tag
“People are DNA’s way of making more DNA.”
– E. O. Wilson (via scienceisbeauty)
This is the sort of statement that makes Steve Talbott’s point. It just pushes the question of agency down to a magical level. DNA has no desire. It cannot choose a “way” and does not “make” in the sense here.
“The problem is that their science gives them a respectable (and extremely...”
– Steve Talbott, The Unbearable Wholeness of Beings
“When what [Jesus] says contradicts our illusions, we ignore him.”
– Rene Girard, Scandal Must Come
“If the Decalogue devotes its final commandment to prohibiting desire for...”
– Rene Girard on: Scandal Must Come
Modern politics seems defined by its flouting of the 10th commandment. Modern ‘social justice’ seems more driven by envy than concern for the poor.
“As I noted earlier, serious researchers have long recognized the “problem” of...”
– Steve Talbott. The Unbearable Wholeness of Beings
3 tags
“Like the visual world of film, pentecostal worship is semiotic; but also like...”
– Thinking in Tongues: Pentecostal Contributions to Christian Philosophy by James K. A. Smith, 81-82 (thanks to @germerian for the tip)
“Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated...”
– G. K. Chesterton (via bookworm73) 