At my worst, I do imagine—with unholy frustration—that the best scriptwriters in the world could not have come up with a more dramatic storyline than we have encountered in the Anglican Communion in the past two decades. It would be hard to imagine a writer developing a script in which the chief actors of the Communion could have acted more blatantly against my expectations and hopes.
From my essay published today by The Living Church, in which I share how turning to three old texts—instead of constantly searching for news updates and analysis—has been an encouraging and edifying practice.
The Premier League script writers strike again with an Eze hat trick salt-in-wound display against Spurs. ⚽️
If you are going to qualify for the World Cup for the first time in 27 years, this is the way to do it. This is going to be an exciting summer of soccer.
There’s a personal satisfaction in grimly pointing out the flaws in a system, but sustainable change, Petrini came to believe, requires providing people with an enjoyable and life-affirming alternative. Petrini didn’t simply write a sharply worded op-ed about the corrupted forces of McDonald’s, he instead promoted an appealing new relationship with food that would make fast food seem self-evidently vulgar.
Re: Carlo Petrini’s Slow Food movement that arose, in part, to a 1986 attempt by McDonald’s to open a restaurant in the Piazza di Spagna in Rome. From Cal Newport’s Slow Productivity.
Wipf & Stock is running a promotion throughout the AAR/SBL conferences, whether you are attending or not.
Education is not properly an industry, and its proper use is not to serve industries, either by job-training or by industry-subsidized research. Its proper use is to enable citizens to live lives that are economically, politically, socially, and culturally responsible… A proper education enables young people to put their lives in order, which means knowing what things are more important than other things; it means putting first things first.
Yes, and joy was just a thing that he was raised on; Love was just a way to live and die.
May this, from John Denver’s Matthew, be true of our children’s experience!
There’s a deeply human satisfaction to retreating to an exotic location and wrestling with your own mind, scratching a record of your battle on paper. The innovations and insights produced by this long thinking are deeper and more subversive than the artificially cheery bullet points of a chatbot.
Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.
The second stanza of Wendell Berry’s How to Be a Poet. Good words to have in mind the night I return home from a work trip and before heading out to a Father/Son campout this weekend.
I posted a brief update to my Soccer Diary today with some thoughts about the beginning of Tottenham’s season and and end of the FC Dallas playoff run.
If you have to install a fire sprinkler system in a school’s sanctuary—and we did—you could do a lot worse. Very grateful for the careful work done to meet code without sacrificing beauty.
We have made a lot of progress the last two weeks on our latest “Viv draws it and we build it together on a budget” project: an increasingly attractive and functional entryway to the house.
It is 2025 anno Domini. In order to avoid subscribing to yet another streaming service I am watching the Spanish language broadcast of the USMNT on Peacock, while listening to the English audio via Westwood One Sports. ⚽️
In which I reflect on the meaning of the cross, not only as a symbol of suffering, but as the ultimate victory of God over sin, death, and evil. The cross was meant for destruction, yet through Christ it has become the source of life, hope, and salvation.
Transcript
There are some lines I have drawn in the sand when it comes to tech companies: I don’t have any sort of account with Alphabet (Google), nor do I have an account with Meta (Facebook, Instagram, etc.). I find their stated goals for the relationship between technology and humanity repulsive, and their exploitation of adolescents—harnessing the power of addiction and pre-teen/teenage hormones to increase their user base—abhorrent. I find nothing redeemable about either tech company.
This upcoming Sunday’s Lectionary: An unlikely candidate for grace—as one must be to receive it!—in the OT (Naaman) followed by an unlikely response to grace from a Samaritan leper who turned back to thank our Lord. And an epistle reading that reminds us that “if we are faithless, he remains faithful.”
They don’t make American soccer kits like they used to.
I am very happy to share that I have signed an agreement with CiRCE Institute to publish Rhythms of Habit in April/May 2026!
I am excited to work with a publisher that focuses on the classical Christian movement, and am looking forward to partnering with them in helping schools adopt a framework of virtues as moral muscles, habits as exercises aimed at strengthening specific moral muscles, and the church calendar as an annual prescriptions of habits that can be adopted in order to holistically strengthen the moral muscles we need to become more like Christ year after year.
Dallas Area Friends: I am teaching class this Fall—in our living room—on the Book of Common Prayer.
The BCP is meant to sustain God’s people all throughout their day and all throughout their life. A growing number of Christians from a variety of traditions and churches are drawn to this rooted, beautiful text, but few have had a solid introduction to its history and purpose or an overview of how to actually navigate this rich resource. Let’s fix this together!
Meets Sunday evenings (Nov. 2, 9, 16, 23 and Dec. 7) from 8-9:30pm in our home. $100 commitment for the course; register here!
I am checking out of reading any form of social media for St. Michael’s Lent this season. I will still post notes here, but won’t be engaging until the end of September. The folks at Exodus 90 have put together an excellent guide to this ancient practice, for the curious.
