After the year-long run streak finished in March, I fell off the bandwagon for a couple of months. Picking it back up by trying to run every street in my neighborhood (Heights Park) and then city (Richardson). Progress map after a few runs this week.
There are 82 years between these two: my daughter (2) and my grandmother (89), both hiking Red Rocks on our annual two week vacation.
My article on social media and virtue that recommends M.b as a viable alternative to Big Social was published today by The Living Church.
Our ancestors sharing what they saw when they checked in on our “progress”:
They have dwellings, but they often pay people to destroy them because they are outdated. And then they pay those same people to put them back together in a style that will soon be outdated.
There are a few pivotal moments recorded in the Gospels that give us a glimpse into Jesus’ life after the resurrection.
But this Sunday’s Gospel is different: it is an Easter-themed flashback to before the Passion that helps us make sense of both the full and the empty tomb.
Began reading these two books today; one for professional and the other for personal reasons. I suspect both will have an impact in both realms.
Glory, glory, Tottenham Hotspur!
An excerpt from my opening remarks at our Rhetoric School Awards Ceremony.
The most important things in life cannot be captured on a certificate.
When my wife gave birth to our children, she was not handed a certificate. (Oddly enough, each of them were!) When a man dies at the age of 93 having lived a life of faithfulness to his wife and family, he does not win an award. The reward of these two examples of faithfulness is not any sort of certificate or recognition, but rather the thing itself. Sacrificial service to another person is the reward. Faithfulness is the reward. Those of us who have experienced glimpses of these things know this to be true.
But many of you have not experienced these things. I know you don’t like to hear this, but it is true: you simply have not lived long enough to experience all of what life has to offer, at least not in its fullest sense. But you will. And what do you now affects the way you will approach the rest of your life.
Which leads me to my second point:
It is worth recognizing—on paper and in front of your peers—those things you have done this school year that are pointers towards the really important things in life.
Grades, in the end, do not matter. But Faithfulness matters a great deal; it can make or break entire families, communities, and nations. And being diligent to give your best effort on homework, even when no one is looking, is a pointer towards the sort of faithfulness you are called to walk in throughout your life. A practice of regular faithfulness now on things that carry little weight is precisely what prepares you for faithfulness when it matters most.
I am not sure we are going to “Redefine” education with QR codes…
Wendell Berry’s poem Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front is all the more impressive/beautiful/haunting for having been first published in 1973.
