Hit Him Until He Dies

S3 (short story singles) are quick reads, fiction and essay, tales and takes, but by no means easy. In this tale, a boy must choose among friend, family, foe, with long-term consequences that can’t possibly be seen …

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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

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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

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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

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He’s the Guy

Those social media posts of ‘this moment in this famous film was totally unscripted!!!’ as if that by itself makes it better miss the point. Moat unscripted material, like most ideas, inventions, ideas, notions, &c … fails — such is the nature of creativity: the best stuff, it is devoutly to be wished, sticks around;

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Random

The Professional

  shows up every day stays on the job all day commits to the long haul sets the stakes high, sees they’re real is patient seeks order demystifies acts in the face of fear accepts no excuses plays it as it lays is prepared doesn’t show off masters technique asks for help doesn’t take failure

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Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time, my children, before the Social Media Olympics, before the rub-on tan; before the laptop with no DVD drive, before the waters had begun to rise again; before the Hybrid and the Hulu, before the earbud and the Entenmann’s outlet; before there were tweets and tweakers, yea afore they had invented the

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Columbo: Why It Matters

This is part two of a two-part post on why, some 45 years later, Columbo still matters. Part one is here. This essay is excerpted from The Columbo Case Files: Season One, found here. Thank you. * I now have the entire collection, all 35 years, nearly 70 episodes in all, and I’ve seen each

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Faith in the Shadowlands

Casting Crowns made me cry. It was the song “Somewhere in the Middle” — sometimes called “Caught in the Middle” on the Internet. I misheard one of the lines too — the phrase is “deepwater faith, in the shallow end.” It was also a little disconcerting to learn that it was written for teenagers. We

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Related

Burning and Bleeding

These 21 essays, some quite short, cover everything from truth and love, to our humility and happiness, to celebrating meals and cursing God, to baseball and Johnny Cash. Thanks for reading.

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Tebow

Can he play? Should he pray? What’s next for Tim Tebow? … This book asks those questions — and answers them. Thanks for reading.

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Your Mom’s a Hypocrite

What’s so wrong with hypocrisy? Other than it being dishonest and demeaning to all that we are as humans … is it really that bad? Actually it can even be good. So, take a look at this book by a hypocrite for hypocrites. Promise you won’t regret it.

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Love Every Day

Tim Keller has said that our sinfulness is far worse than we ever could imagine, and that God’s love is far more than we ever dared hope. And Christians for millennia have affirmed no better way to learn these truths – and many others besides – than to love God with all our heart and

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