Jon Jordan

Leaving Twitter is a small but important first step towards a healthier relationship with technology, your neighbor, and your self.

Not because of Musk, but because Big Social is shrinking our souls.

The final first-person verb of the Nicene Creed helps us remember that the Christian faith is more than mental affirmation of truth. It involves a shaping of hopes and desires.

• We believe (x4)
• We acknowledge (x1)
• We look for the resurrection of the dead …

All Souls Day is a helpful antidote to our death-anemic culture that oscillates between ignoring and overly-fearing this experience shared by all living creatures.

All Souls Day helps us to remember that thou art dust … and to look for the resurrection of the dead.

The farmer and the pig.

Settled on a good use of a corner of our new backyard: building a playhouse for the kids. (Current ages 9, 7, and 2.)

I paused the Tottenham match I was watching in the 95th minute to wake up my daughter so she could rewatch Kane’s goal with me.

And then we discovered together that the goal was under review…

My fault? Sure.

VAR ruining the beautiful game? Absolutely.

Many have fallen by the edge of the sword, but not as many as have fallen because of the tongue. … As you fence in your property with thorns, so make a door and a bolt for your mouth.

A gem from Ecclesiasticus found in today’s Daily Office Lectionary.

My wife returned this weekend from a two week pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago. My latest piece at Covenant is about my experience trying to walk the pilgrim way while caring for our kids here at home.

It was my own Camino de Solo Dad.

I do not love it when a match is decided by PKs—they are a terrible way to lose—but it was quite the experience being in the stands last night when FC Dallas advanced on Velasco’s Panenka.

What’s a Panenka, you ask?

The two teams I support most have coaches who insists on their “System” even when the results are not (yet/always?) positive.

I trust Conte when he says “trust the system” more than I do when Berhalter says the same. Here’s hoping for a surprise on the later come World Cup time!

The seven day week as a microcosm of the Church Calendar. Read more here.

Slowly but surely, my Run Thy Neighborhood project continues. Today’s run completed the outer frame of a neighborhood and a half, and a few missing street portions. Still a long way to go: I have completed 29/1240 Richardson streets so far.

(Literally) One step at a time.

Three years ago today I was ordained a Priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas.

The USAMNT proceeded to cough the ball up 54 times inside their own half in the first half alone. Think about that for a minute and it becomes almost impressive: they gave the ball away 1.2 times per minute. Unfathomable.

Ouch. But it’s just a friendly, right? RIGHT???

My Run Thy Neighborhood goal hit a first milestone today: Heights Park (my actual neighborhood) is complete. On to Arapaho Heights next!

A change I made to my work email last week has proven quite fruitful:

Emails that I am copied on now skip the inbox and go directly to a CC folder. I check that folder once or twice a day. With this one change, my work inbox has has gone from hundreds to dozens of daily emails.

Tottenham’s “win or tie even when it’s ugly” approach has finally caught up to them. I would not want to be sitting near Antonio Conte on the flight back to England…

I still think they wind up on top of their Champion’s League group, but this is a much needed wake up call.

One of the benefits of following the Church calendar is the nearly constant reminders that it brings. Holy Cross Day (September 14) is a great example of this: squarely on the other side of the calendar from Good Friday, we are reminded again of the centrality of the Cross.

O earth, how like to heav’n, if not preferred

The opening line of Satan’s soliloquy in Book IX of Paradise Lost.

Grass: the great American contribution to world soccer this fall.

The seed, developed by a Georgia-based company, has been selected by FIFA, which has instructed Qatar 2022 organisers to use it for playing surfaces at all stadiums and training grounds.

I am thrilled to introduce Rhythms of Habit, a newsletter about approaching the Church Calendar as an apprenticeship in Holiness.

In addition to (hopefully) being a helpful and informative newsletter, this project is also a means of finalizing the draft of my next book, called Rhythms of Habit: The Church Calendar as an Apprenticeship in Holiness.

If you are already sold, head on over to Substack to join as a free or paid subscriber. If you need to hear more, read on!

A little more about the Rhythms of Habit project:

As we live out the Christian Year together, three types of posts will be published:

• Introductory: these posts explain how following the calendar is good for your growth as a Christian. The first three of these are free to everyone, and help give a foundation for why you might want to start following the Church Calendar.
• About the Church Calendar: these posts share the history of the church calendar, some things that are helpful to know, and help answer common questions. Why do we celebrate saints? What is Epiphany really about? How did these seasons develop? What is a Triduum?
• Holy Day / Holy Season Reflections: these posts are the real core of the newsletter. As we encounter Holy Days and Holy Seasons throughout the year, you will be given habits to consider adopting that are rooted in who or what is being celebrated by that day or season.

If you are new here or new to the Church Calendar, you may want to explore the free introductory posts. Think of these as the introductory foundation of the newsletter.

• Why holiness matters
• Why we need habits
• Why we need a calendar

More of these Introductory posts, along with many About the Church Calendar posts will be sent throughout the year to subscribers.

But here is the real core of the newsletter: Holy Day and Holy Season reflections.

As we progress through the Church Calendar year after year, reflections on major and minor Holy Days will be shared. Yes, you will learn more about the calendar itself. But more importantly you will be given daily or seasonal practices and habits to adopt, in hopes that these habits will help you grow in Christ. You can find a free preview of these sort of reflections here: Feast of St. Joseph.

Why Subscribe?

Free subscribers have access to some of these posts throughout the Church Year. If you like what you are reading, consider becoming a paid subscriber to make sure you receive all new reflections as they are published, and gain access to reading all old reflections, too.

The first Holy Day reflection will be on September 14th, when we celebrate Holy Cross Day. Subscribe by then to make sure you don’t miss a post!

The late Queen Elizabeth II played the hand she was dealt about as well as it could possibly have been played, and this required her to exercise virtues that few of our public figures today even know exist: dutifulness; reliability; silence; dignity; fidelity; devotion to God, family, and nation. We shall not look upon her like again; her death marks the end of a certain world. Its excellences, as well as its shortcomings, are worthy of our remembrance. (Alan Jacobs)

This is the moment George W. Bush heard that a second plane had crashed into the WTC.

FWIW: amateur comes from the Latin (via French) amatorem: lover.

An amateur does a thing primarily for the love of that thing.

More than a few friends have slowly become fans of The Beautiful Game by way of two things:

(1) My own peer pressure / love for the game

(2) My introduction of @ayjay’s review of The Language of the Game