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Sep 8

2 Comments

ABBA Essentials and the Perils of Unlimited Choice

“What do you wanna listen to now?” My wife asked me this question a handful of times from the passenger seat as we made our way over the Rockies and back to help our kids settle into college last weekend. Twenty-five hours in transit gives you plenty of time for listening to stuff, whether it’s podcasts, audio books, or music. Each time the question came, I would half-heartedly ponder the request for a few seconds and then respond with something along the lines of, “Um, I don’t know, nothing’s really coming to mind… I kinda need to see my options.” My wife would then furrow her brow at me, scroll through Apple Music on one of our phones, and then usually end up picking either something that one of us had downloaded recently and was thus near the top of our screens or something we had listened to in the past. Read more

Sep 2

3 Comments

On Cheerleading

I have always been suspicious of cheerleaders. Not literal cheerleaders as in the (usually) female visual accessories to (usually) male sporting events (a sexist and retrograde phenomenon, if ever there was one, but that’s another post). No, the cheerleaders I’m thinking of are those who uncritically line up behind their preferred political party or religious perspective or ideology and, well, cheer along. Read more

Aug 26

6 Comments

Beauty Calls

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about beauty. This is perhaps a strange thing to be thinking about in a year as ugly as 2020 has been and may yet be. I could catalogue all the ways that 2020 has under-performed but this is hardly necessary, right? You’re all sentient beings and have likely been tethered to your screens just like everyone else during this pandemic. And at any rate, one gets tired of obsessing and complaining about ugliness after a while. There is a seemingly limitless supply of it and the outrage/fear/anxiety machine of the internet keeps it ever before us. Perhaps some more pleasant fare will be welcome.

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Aug 5

4 Comments

Awe About Shock

It seems that an external review into complaints from former and current employees at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg has uncovered “pervasive and systemic racism” and a “toxic culture.” A rather awkward finding for an institution devoted to, well, human rights. One might expect that if any workplace was to be characterized by equality, compassion, dignity, fairness, etc., it would be the CMHR. One’s expectations would, it seems, be rather too optimistic. Read more

Jul 31

4 Comments

There Are No Ugly Questions

I did a strange thing the other day. I had been asked to be a part of a collaborative online project whose hoped-for scope would be relatively broad. It was an offer that, were it made ten, five, or maybe even two years ago, I might have leapt at without the slightest hesitation. But these are unusual times. Instead of enthusiastically agreeing to participate, I said something like this: Read more

Jul 27

12 Comments

Monday Miscellany

Even in normal times, late July tends to be a time when things slow down. Church programs have mostly paused for the summer. Services are sparsely attended as many people flock to the cabin or the mountains or wherever else. For those stuck at work, it can be a hot, sluggish stretch of time where inspiration and motivation are in short supply. And this is, again, in normal times. During COVID time? Well, everything feels somehow worse. Words, and the motivation to produce them, seem to have abandoned me. That’s how it’s felt over the last few weeks at any rate. But a few things have been rattling around my head over the last little while. A quiet Monday morning seems as good a time as any to dislodge them. Read more

Jul 10

As Advertised

I don’t know much about Rachel Hollis. I haven’t read her books or listened to her marriage podcast or engaged with any of the other media she produces. I know very little about the Hollis brand and what I do know comes second hand. There was an article about her that made the rounds recently. And then she came up on a podcast that I listened to recently. My impression is that she’s built a quite significant following by offering a “get your act together” jolt of personal responsibility combined with an emphasis upon and commitment to vulnerability and authenticity. It certainly seems to be a winning combination in the digital age where we can’t seem to get enough of authenticity or advice. Read more

Jul 8

11 Comments

We Are Too Liberal With Our Contempt

Yesterday, a group of prominent artists, writers, and academics signed an open letter in Harper’s Magazine decrying the rising tide of illiberalism and ruthlessly policed ideological conformity in public discourse. There are some impressive names on the list: Margaret Atwood, Atul Gawande, Gloria Steinem, Salman Rushdie, and J.K. Rowling are just a few of the more than one hundred fifty signatories who are growing increasingly uneasy about “cancel culture” and the censuring of any viewpoints that don’t align with the orthodoxies of the moment. Read more

Jun 23

5 Comments

On Questions of Authority

Last Friday, our church took some baby steps toward reopening. Sort of. We’ve been recording worship services on Friday night so we can edit and get them out to people by Sunday morning. Last week, for the first time, we allowed a few people to be present during the recording. Attendees had to RSVP in advance, seats were spread out and each person’s place was designated. There were less than thirty people in the building, all told. There was no congregational singing, no handshakes, no hugging, no passing of offering plates, no communion, no touching of hymnals. There were masks and endless supplies of hand sanitizer. It was a rather sterile and unusual service, but then we’re getting pretty used to unusual by this point. I suspect that people were more appreciative of the opportunity to linger with friends in the parking lot after the service on a gorgeous summer evening than anything else. Read more

Jun 18

On the Occasion of Your Nineteenth Birthday

Hi kids,

Remember how last year I said I was done writing these rambling birthday letters to you now that you are adults? Well, I lied. You can add this latest transgression to the sad list that I’ve accumulated over nearly two decades as your father. Each year on this day I tend to dissolve into a puddle of sentimental nostalgia mixed in with a generous dose of neurotic longing for your futures and, naturally, this garbled mess has to find expression somewhere, right? You’ll thank me for this later, no doubt. Ahem. Read more

Jun 10

19 Comments

On Calling the Cops

The clock said 5:20 when I heard my wife shuffling back into bed this morning. “I thought I heard something downstairs,” she mumbled. It was probably nothing, we both agreed. Our teenage son has been known to prowl about the house loudly foraging for food at ungodly hours of the night/morning. Or maybe it was our cat who has a capacity for producing levels of noise wildly disproportionate to his size. And there’s always the ever-present wind. There were a number of plausible explanations for the mystery sounds. Probably nothing. Read more

Jun 2

11 Comments

Wagging White Fingers

I’ve hesitated to say much in response to the grim spectacle of America ablaze with protests against the racism, police brutality, and appalling murder of George Floyd last week in Minneapolis. My justifications for silence often wander down familiar trails. What can I say that others can’t say or haven’t already said better? I’m not American; what right do I have to say anything about a social reality that is not my own? What good does adding to an amorphous chorus of condemnation/white guilt really do? Isn’t ninety percent of what’s going online today a flailing combination of virtue signalling and emoting out loud? What good is one more wagging white finger against racism? Read more

May 19

3 Comments

Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone)

I don’t know what COVID-19 is doing to the brains of others as the long days of physical separation grind on. For me, it’s apparently introduced a full-blown case of nostalgia. I’m drifting through old photos pondering how uncomplicated things seemed back then. I’m wistfully remembering things like road trips and concerts and sporting events—things that seem almost literally impossible these days. And I’m listening to the music of my childhood more than usual. Yesterday, it was the Counting Crows and Genesis as I barbecued in the backyard. The day before it was (gulp) Heart and Roxette. The day before that it was an embarrassingly bad playlist of power ballads. I could go on, but in the interests of preserving what’s left of my dignity I should probably stop.  Read more

May 13

4 Comments

How Does God Matter?

I was listening to a podcast the other day and the topic of “guilty pleasures during a pandemic” came up. What are watching and listening to these days? What distractions are getting us through the days? How are we spending our time now that we have so much more of it to spend at home? Even those admirable souls who are using COVID-19 as an opportunity to take up virtuous new hobbies like building their own furniture or making quilts for the less fortunate or learning a new language must spend the odd hour or two on less laudable pursuits, right? Right? The rest of us sure hope so. Read more

May 7

3 Comments

To Love Another

Some people don’t know how to respond to throwaway questions. You know, the kind of verbal ephemera that so many us daily traffic in to fill up social spaces? The classic example is, of course, “How are you?” We’re rarely really interested in the answer to the question. We mostly just pause long enough for the obligatory “fine, “good,” or “busy” before moving on to the next item on the agenda. But occasionally people forget their lines and do crazy things like actually tell you how they’re doing. Maybe this pandemic has opened up some time and space for reflection. Maybe we don’t have as many important things to rush off to. Maybe we’re finding more time to ponder the “normal” we’ve lost or are in the process of losing. Maybe we’re doing some re-evaluating of priorities and asking questions about what we’ve been doing and why we’ve been doing it. Read more

Apr 27

3 Comments

On Staying Safe

Stay safe. You hear these two little words a lot these days. They serve as the tag at the end of the phone call, the coda for the email, the last words before signing off yet another Zoom meeting, the wary exhortation as you watch your son head off to a shift at the grocery store. These two words have become part of the furniture of our leave-taking, virtual or otherwise, during the days of COVID. Read more

Apr 16

9 Comments

Why Pandemic?

Why COVID-19? What is the meaning of this global pandemic that we are all currently living through? This is a question that might sound nonsensical to many readers. It’s a rather embarrassing category confusion. Seeking to find “meaning” in something like a virus is silly, at best. Read more

Apr 14

15 Comments

Diary of a COVID Easter

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve said (and heard) it over the past week or so, but truly this has been the strangest Holy Week and Easter weekend that I have ever experienced. This morning, I sat down to chronicle the weirdness, sorrow, and hope of the past week or so. Read more

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