Relent is not Repent.
Relent is … Oh, OK … yeah. I shouldn’t.
Repent is … not that.
Relent and Sin S’More
Recent
Coyotes and Christians
I am not saying Christians are like coyotes. [For that, some could cut caustically to coyotes are like Christians — tricksters, roaming in the dark, feeding on the dead … ] Simply noticed — somewhat in passing, as it’s said, having attained, apparently … achieved? … some kind of state where nearly anything I hear,
And Did Dostoevsky Say ‘Beauty Will Save’
Short answer: he did not. Neither did Prince Myshkin, that we know of. Likely both believed it. Beauty — in the person of Christ — will do so. And clearly D wrote of M in The Idiot to explore art and beauty and ugliness and salvation. But did he say it, and did he believe that
What I Recalled Watching Netflix
[Television is educational.] One Saying the same stuff over and over looks like you have different things to say. Two If you’re ever in a below-average film or streaming series, and you beat the tar out of a guy, in a house, and you gaze down in both some shock as also a certain
Seeking the King
A line everywhere misattributed to Chesterton reads thus: The young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God. This line is not from the great [several senses of the word] man who recently celebrated his 150th birthday, but the mid-century most unmodern novelist Bruce Marshall. The words — which do
Random
Is Not That Special?
From a review of a book on founding Britain’s Special Air Service in World War II, what was required of recruits — Courage Fitness Determination Discipline Skill Intelligence Training and another review noted, quoting the book — “Recruits tended to be unusual to the point of eccentricity … people who did not fit easily into the
On (Not) Using Words
Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words. Quick now — who said that? Me. Just now. Weren’t you paying attention? The saying is sometimes attributed to Francis of Assisi, most likely erroneously, as many are gleefully wont to revel in and reveal, should someone dare voice the view. To which the only
Get In The Boat
You’re in this boat. I’m going to say the boat is our life in Christ, though over time the boat image, the water metaphor, has done yeoman’s work for pastors immemorial — it’s our body, our life, our church, our baptism, our faith, our death. You get the idea. Now imagine you’re the first guy
Being That Guy
Once after one of my MFA professors had said the work we were reading was neither good nor original, the student who’d produced the pages wailed, But … but this actually happened! So what? He said. * I think François Truffaut said everyone in fiction is crazy, and the problem is to render this craziness
Related
Never Ending Story
For the record, such as this is, Breaking Bad won’t end. As the series has continued we’ve become accustomed to Walt doing what he wants. And he certainly doesn’t think a thing’s over until he says it is. The previous episode, ostensibly the second-to-last-ever one, ended with him heading out to take care of business,
Not a Eulogy
(A Eucatastrophe) * Love the words, my friends. Pay attention to the words, I say. Christians don’t die One reason we know this is Jesus said it. In John’s account he told Michael: “You shall never taste or see death” (Indeed, as the Psalmist says, “taste and see that the Lord is good.”) Another reason
Do Piece — Anger (Buechner)
Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving
Can We Tawk?
Comedienne Joan Rivers’ catchphrase was, ‘Can we talk?’ with all that that entails — its rhetorical nature, the Jewish thing, an implication that at least one of the parties will be better off for having done so … Like God. T’other day a priest spoke of ontological remembrance, the immediate and ongoing memory of past-present-future