Family / Life

Twenty-Five

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The school where our son-in-law works bought a 3D-printer so they could print various things around the school that they needed and couldn’t get elsewhere. While we were visiting them for Christmas, he asked my wife and I if there was anything small we would like printed for us. My wife chose a pencil cup that looks great in the multi-colored filament he used to print it. I chose something in black-and-white, for … reasons.Three 3D printed white elephants, a male, female, and baby, sitting on a black base.

I often read or hear of people who can no longer remember a loved one who has died. The most recent time was yesterday—I’m reading through P.

Church / Life

Nobody Cares About God’s Holiness

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We’d almost made it out the door of church on Sunday when I was pulled into a conversation by a friend who was engaged in a discussion with someone I didn’t know. The discussion concerned a “short answer” for those whose response to “God loves us” was to ask where God’s love was when He told Israel to kill all the Canaanites (as one example). According to the person asking the question, this is a common attack point on TikTok, and he wanted a quick comeback that was also TikTok-sized (short).

Life

Flashlights

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Ran across this today (emphasis mine).

A teacher is someone who stands with you in the dark and holds their flashlight just long enough for you to find your own flashlight.

—Steve Jobs

The two big problems I’ve observed with teachers (and occasionally parents, but I repeat myself) over the years are:

  1. They think the goal is to commiserate and keep you company in the dark.
  2. They think the goal is to let you bask in the glory of their flashlight for as long as possible.

(I should state the obvious and say that I’ve been guilty of both.)

Be a flashlight.

Uncategorized

Folie à Deux

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A few years ago there was a movie called Joker. It was controversial; critics tended to love it or hate it (“bold, devastating” vs “as social commentary, Joker is pernicious garbage”), and the people who watched it tended to be at either extreme as well.

Inevitably, this year there was a sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux. Just as inevitably, it bombed. Even the people that loved the first one hated this one, it tanked at the box office, and it scored three points lower on IMDB than the original. To top it all off, the ending showed that the main character wasn’t the Joker, just a joker, so they essentially lied the whole time about what the movies were about.

Bible Study

Names

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Names are important; without them we’d all be yelling “Hey you, in the green!” when we wanted to talk to someone, and everyone in green would think we were talking to them. It would be very confusing, not to mention loud. Maybe wearing something chartreuse would mitigate things, but only if others knew the difference between green and chartreuse. (Which in any event comes back to names, in this case the names of colors rather than people.)

Names can also be controversial. When word got out that my name was going to be an abbreviated form of a saint’s name, my mother got a letter from a nun announcing that she (my mother) simply couldn’t do that.

Life / Spiritual Journey

My Story

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A couple of weeks ago, our pastor challenged us to write our Jesus story and send it to someone. I’m a little late because reasons, but here we go.

To the best of my recollection, I started going to church when I was five. As I got older, attendance became more frequent; it was Sunday morning/Sunday night/Wednesday night through most of my growing up years.