January 2013
5 posts
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MMXII.3
[An aside: over a quarter of the books I read in 2012 were about love, relationships, and friendship, so there’s that.] Shortly before the fall semester began, I was journaling about how tired I was of wrestling with God over my singleness. I wrote out the lyrics to “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah.” I wanted to trust God’s timing and provision, to not be disconsolate by the...
4 tags
MMXII.2
The two semesters of 2012 bookended my third—and probably final—summer working at New Life Ranch. My mom worked at NLR in the 1970s. Most of my siblings and I went as campers, my sister worked there, and I felt called to be a counselor in 2010 as early as March of 2009. It’s always been a special place for me, and God protected me from the temptation of internships and “real”...
MMXII.1
I started 2012 at the eighth annual Lepine new year’s eve party with my old high school chums. As per tradition, we went down the park in our neighborhood to drink sparkling grape juice and pray and talk. It was not long after that I joined my new camp chums at a farm in Green Country, OK to chop wood and think about the future and pray and talk. I was still very sad about my girlfriend...
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On Reading Challenges and Google Docs
I started keeping track of what books I read, what movies I watched, and what performances (concerts, plays, &c.) I attended when I turned 18. In 2010, I did the 52 in 52 challenge with my sisters. I read 52 books that year; I only watched 31 films. In 2011, I picked another reading challenge that I called 4 in 4: four books of over 1,000 pages in four seasons. I did not actually read a book...
November 2012
1 post
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The INTJ Explained: The Death Glare →
lauracricket:
intj-explained:
For a lot of people, their neutral mood face is a smile, or at the very least, nonthreatening. For a lot of INTJs, it’s the Death Glare (this affectionate name is courtesy of a old INTP friend of mine, who brought mine to my attention many years ago). Instead of exerting the effort to smile or frown, we seem to take the efficient route of doing nothing at all,...
October 2012
1 post
September 2012
1 post
August 2012
3 posts
“If one makes love into a fleeting sentiment, a sensual feeling in a person, then...”
– Kierkegaard
This is more or less what I'm saying to honor my...
When I think of my younger brother David I think of a picture of my family on the Eye of London, a magnificent Ferris wheel on the Thames with enclosed cars that a dozen or two folks can stand in. My older brother, James, was 14 and about done growing at the time the picture was taken, and he is about five feet eight inches. I was near eleven and David was almost eight that summer, but there were...
July 2012
1 post
This is more or less what I'm saying to toast my...
I’d like to say a few words on behalf of the Best Men, that is, my younger brother David and me. It is a great honor to have this special position of support for our older brother, especially after everything he has meant to us and modeled for us as we’ve grown up.
I’ve known Jimmy my whole life. [hopeful pause for laughter] He is my favorite big brother, and his example has...
May 2012
4 posts
7 tags
“We’re asking educators to deliver better outcomes, but we haven’t...”
– Wendy Kopp, CEO of Teach For America: “How Micromanaging Educators Stifles Reform” (The Atlantic)
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“Jobs leaves us a template we can follow if we are willing to throw out the old...”
– Geoffrey Orsak, incoming President of the University of Tulsa
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The Legalism Legalist
(This is a follow-up post to “The Barefoot Legalist” in March; check out that story for context.)
My dad speaks of “the expulsive power of a new affection” as one of the surest remedies for a broken heart. It’s not necessarily a rebound crush, although that would probably work too, but love has its curative properties and this seems to be one of them. Honestly,...
April 2012
2 posts
sarahneff:
A day of surprise:
what good father wouldn’t just
give his son a fish?
March 2012
3 posts
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The Barefoot Legalist
I started running seriously again in the spring of 2011. Especially after a dreigh winter, the Scottish spring can be enchantingly beautiful: the sun comes out, sometimes the temperature is in the 60s (Fahrenheit), and it looks like God has turned the Saturation filter way up high on his photo-editing software (as Tim describes it).
I ran to soak up sunshine. I ran to keep from going stir-crazy....
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3 tags
http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/i...
BS: Last question, quick, five seconds.
Obama: Yes.
BS: Settle an office debate. Best Wire character of all time?
Obama: It’s got to be Omar, right? I mean, that guy is unbelievable, right?
BS: We might break this down as like a March Madness bracket, and I think he’s going to be the no. 1 seed. [Laughter.] Everyone is in on Omar, it seems like.
Obama: He’s got to be the no. 1 seed. I mean, what a combination. And that was one of the best shows of all time.
February 2012
9 posts
“What madness for a fleeting being like man always to look far into a future...”
– Jean-Jacques Rousseau, calling me out for daydreaming
6 tags
“‘Propose what can be done,’ they never stop repeating to me. It is...”
– Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Emile) giving voice to every idealist who’s been naysaid time & again.
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“Basically, here’s how it works: Students are given a weekly grid and must select...”
– the kind of homework that should be assigned (via squishynotslick)
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Marriage & Commitment
Kurt Braunohler: I do have a theory now. I do have a theory about if I do get married in the future. What I think I would want to do is have an agreement that at the end of seven years, we have to get remarried in order for the marriage to continue. But at the end of seven years, it ends. And we can agree to get remarried or not gTet remarried.
Ira Glass: I don’t know what I think of that. Because I think, actually, one of the things that’s a comfort in marriage is that there isn’t a door at seven years. And so if something is messed up in the short-term, there’s a comfort of knowing, well, we made this commitment. And so we’re just going to work this out. And even if tonight we’re not getting along or there’s something between us that doesn’t feel right, you have the comfort of knowing, we’ve got time. We’re going to figure this out. And that makes it so much easier. Because you do go through times when you hate each other’s guts. You know what I mean?
(via wesleyhill, see blog.marriagedebate.com/2012/02/what-i-did-for-love-this-american-life.html)
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“Our cause is never in more danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but...”
– Screwtape, C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters.
I have to have read this book a half dozen times by now. It never gets old.
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“Don’t we all “waste” our time with one activity or another? … [T]he very...”
– S. W. F. Knecht: Why a blog?
Squishy Not Slick: This has something to do with... →
squishynotslick:
“Soon it became clear to me that quietly and en masse, French parents were achieving outcomes that created a whole different atmosphere for family life. When American families visited our home, the parents usually spent much of the visit refereeing their kids’ spats, helping their toddlers do laps around the kitchen island, or getting down on the floor to build Lego villages....
“For most privileged, professional people, the experience of confinement is a...”
– from Adam Gopnik’s essay on mass incarceration and criminal justice in America (via wesleyhill)
January 2012
9 posts
Top Hipster Runoff descriptors for Bon Iver
bestrooftalkever:
‘boring cool dad overgrounder music’
‘field-wave’
‘walden-wave’
‘meaningfulcore music’
‘cool dad-NPRwave’
‘rural wave’
‘snooze wave’
‘haunting soft-rock-wave’
‘unabomber-manifesto-wave’
‘lamestream dad’
‘sub-prime mortgage buzz loan vibes in ruralwave’
2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (HCSB)
“Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so I would not exalt myself. Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times to take it away from me. But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my...
“A man who really fights for justice must lead a private, not a public, life if...”
– Plato on not going into politics (Apology 32a)
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The Tempest Act IV, Scene 1
PROSPERO Then, as my gift and thine own acquisition Worthily purchased take my daughter: but If thou dost break her virgin-knot before All sanctimonious ceremonies may With full and holy rite be minister’d, No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall To make this contract grow: but barren hate, Sour-eyed disdain and discord shall bestrew The...
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2011
Another big change I made in 2011: I started listening to country music. At first just because it felt like the “right” thing to have on the radio in a hot Arkansas summer after five months abroad. But country music is fun, and memorable, and predictable, and simple. I found I could enjoy it honestly and without effort, just sinking naturally into the plain world presented in the song....
4 tags
Making All Things New
2011: changes made, resolved or on accident
Four big books read: Bone, Les Miserables, The Lord of the Rings, The Hunger Games Trilogy
More cooking, thanks to being without a meal plan in Edinburgh. Learned recipes like coffee cake, pineapple teriyaki chicken, vegetarian fried rice, and pasta a-plenty.
Exercise innovations: barefoot running, kettlebell routines, eschewing exercise machines.
...
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“The great modern enemy of friendship has turned out to be love. By love, I don’t...”
– Andrew Sullivan (via wesleyhill)
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4 in 4
It’s been a good long while since I updated you on this year’s reading challenge (4 books of 1,000+ pages in 4 seasons). After a strong start—finishing Bone, Les Miserables, and The Lord of the Rings before the summer solstice—my schedule filled up and I didn’t have as much time for lengthy reads. Study abroad was perfect for 4 in 4; regular life isn’t.
But like so many...
December 2011
18 posts
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