Link Love & the Pastor, the Plumber, and the Poet
I'm moving this weekend, have a conference for work all week, and a pile of due articles looming in front of me, so my mental acuity and creativity is somewhere below sea-level. Link-love it is. Before the links, though, the more I read actual books, books over which authors have labored and sweat blood and tears, the less I find good writing on the web. This is sad to me because I think if we're going to put content out there, it should be good content, it should be the best content.
Fellow writers: don't write because you feel something must be said—it is far better for one writer to say one thing in the most winsome way possible, than for many content-creators to say the same thing many different ways and none of them win any. There is just as much glory to be had for the plumber, the pastor, the preacher, the preschool teacher, the parent, and the pediatrician as there is for the poet. It only depends on whose glory he seeks.
Now for some good writin':
Alone With My Thoughts: I’ve been alone in the car on some rather crowded highways. That, sadly, doesn’t mean I have been driving in silence. If my windows could talk, well, parental guidance is suggested.
Cigar Smoking and Grace For the Accountability-Holder: We are looking for grace from our accountability-holders. But we ought also to be looking to how we might give grace to our accountability-holders. Maybe we ought to strive for holiness and integrity in our lives not simply out of personal religious ambition but out of relational mercy, out of a desire to not make religious cuckolds of our friends.
Is 'Background Information' Ever Necessary to Understand the Bible? Others so focus on "background information" that they end up foregrounding what is in the background and backgrounding what is in the foreground.
There’s No Such Thing as a Writer (and other thoughts for those of you thinking about writing): It is of the utmost importance that one be humble before words. They have been around for a very long time, they are very powerful, and they are a gift from God.
When is a Royal Baby a Fetus? They find out they are pregnant, they see the two little stripes on the home test, and their heart drops. They don’t know what to do; they have no help from the man who impregnated them; they already work tirelessly, raise children, and have precious little in the bank. Though every life is precious, some are imperiled from the start.
A number of my peers have recanted, found God just too wild. Oh they still rise to say the creeds but there is no blood in their mouths. I expected by now to learn the language of God but I have only learned to love him.
I just love this. That's all.