I was 'detained' by US customs while travelling. Something triggered US officials. They thought I was someone else apparently. So, I was taken to the back room while they sorted it out. No big deal. Happens all the time. The gleeful salivating re: @SlowToWrite is subhuman.

It's the suicidal apathy toward institutional rituals that bind us & give cohesion to our national, civic life that galls me. Many r just not American all the way down in the soul. They're rootless millionaire mercenaries. “Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder” -Toynbee

You can rightly say 'white men have been dealt a bad hand' w/out resorting to racial identity politics as remedy. It takes deep virtue & wisdom to de-victimize a race while addressing race. But it can & should be done. Be bigger than the blood tribalism to which you're beholden.

This degree of barbaric vengeance rivals the pre-Christendom tribal pagan violence of medieval Europe. Cruel and vicious.

So much going on here; an annoying new neighbor, a race-baiting resident, conflicting self-serving social contracts around private/public space use. Whew. 'Love your neighbor as yourself' requires wisdom.

Today we will discuss him and his work in church history class. No superlatives adequately describe this book. It molded my mind and melted my heart when I read it. Young men, who don’t like theology otherwise, have resonated with it deeply. Tolle lege

Every time a man leaves a public bathroom without washing his hands, a tiny piece of civilization dies as the descent into barbarism picks up its pace.

I tried to 'evangelize' Alexa asking 'Do you believe in Jesus Christ?' She said she has no foundational beliefs because she is AI. She only shares perspectives. She then peppered me with q's about my belief in soul/body relations. It was Bezos data mining. Still, fun & surreal.

That moment you realize preserving Nicene theology was a matter of life and death (not including all the cursings, spittings, stonings, yellings in addition to attempted murder). Btw, after the assassin failed, he repented & became friends with the bishop, Gregory of Nazianzus

The tallest educational building in the western hemisphere (2nd tallest in the world), a testament to the Babel-like aspirations and conceits of modernity. The cry ‘Let us ascend to the heavens!’ Never dies. It just morphs.

'yet are they never utterly destitute....' -WCF 18.4

'I rest my weary soul in Thee' Experientially, few things are as simultaneously easy and hard.

After teaching through Nicaea a number of times over the years, I still confuse and misspell these terms.

Imagine the dark heart that seethes at seeing a black dude fellowshipping with two white dudes at seminary. Further, imagine believing that there be few black men who could pass a simple Hebrew exam. Do people really follow this fool?

The rise of right-coded racial grievance is one of the wildest sociological developments of recent history. And in a mass immigration, post-George Floyd, DEI-driven, anti-western world, it was entirely predictable.

'The more abundantly the benefits of civilization come streaming our way, the emptier our life becomes. With all its wealth and power, it only shows that the human heart, in which God has put eternity, is so huge that all the world is too small to satisfy it.' Bavinck, RD 3:327ff

When I think of the decline of the West, at least three areas (and the animating questions behind them) come to mind: (1) Anthropology - What is man? (2) Social fragmentation - To whom/where do I belong? (3) Vocation - What am I supposed to do? Others?

Finally purchased this classic after 30+ years of reading the Puritans. You can thank Augustine’s Enchiridion for leading me here. Better late than never.

“Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality” (C.S. Lewis)

Didn't anticipate that 'formation' talk would approach similar levels of overuse as 'community.' But here we are. And we're probably the better for it.