withdrawing stance

I’m still reading The Sacred Enneagram. (You think, “Of course you are; you just picked it up a few days ago.” Au contraire, mon frère; if I hadn’t been behind in Hebrew and felt my History midterm loom, I’d’ve finished it the day I got it. So GOOD.) Yesterday I was reading/not-reading it while preparing […]

my committee is not like your committee

“Okay! So we need a coach for our small group shepherds. Wait. Coach; shepherd. Can you coach shepherds? Is that a thing? How does that work for shepherds; aren’t they pretty isolated out in the fields?”   True conversation. And we steer the Christian education for our folks: is this a good thing? You decide!

tea or cookies?

Hebrew homework is preying on my mind, enough that it bubbled up as the center of an “unprepared” dream also involving kind and gracious military veterans (all men) whom I didn’t know. Yeah, I do need to look that up. So in an effort to write more than yesterday (e.g., nil) but herd myself back […]

jumu’ah, pizza, cookies

I attended my first Muslim worship gathering today. It was about as I thought it might be (see: college student faith outreach center). I didn’t stop to consider how much I’d wish I knew Arabic… evidently understanding what’s said in worship is a deeply-embedded custom for me. ** By the time I made it back […]

othering

“How do we protect the vulnerable, and fight for the common good without turning on ourselves? How do we do the right thing and speak the truth?” —Nadia Boltz-Weber, known on Twitter as @Sarcasticluther Today in my World Religions discussion section we tried to talk about violence and Islam. And violence and the US, and […]

too tired to think

…so instead I’m reading. But what do we mean by identity? The missiologist-theologians Vinay Samuel and Chris Sugden, who have studied identity and dignity, nuance the differences between the two as those of substance and value, suggesting, “Identity answers the question ‘Who am I?’, while dignity answers the question, ‘What am I worth?’” […] Within […]

come together

אכלתי מקום אננ (I ate at Ann’s place. While studying Hebrew with my group, but I don’t know those words yet. Also, I’m using “know” very loosely, because I looked up aleph-kaf-lamed (the root for “eat”) in my vocab list yet again. It’s coming together.)

comfortable

Nick Young: We’re… comfortable. Rachel Chu: “Comfortable” is what rich people say!! — Crazy Rich Asians (film) I’m unlikely to make it to my guided workout today because I’m waiting for the plumber. Yesterday our hot-water heater refused — it’s tankless, so it’s an all-or-nothing proposition — and hot water’s a priority. (I’ve been holding […]

carbonation of words

I’m at a friend’s child’s wedding (!). I am verrryy sleepy — it’s been another long week — and I’m pretty sure that’s not what Jack Johnson sang. But I like it anyway.