Frosted Echoes

📚 Armada - Ernest Cline: I understand that ebook usage may have peaked, but the Kindle Paperwhite is one of my favorite devices. I absolutely love the integration with Libby. Checking out ebooks is so easy.

📷 On fire at the museum.

Philip Christman captures the kind of frustration I felt when using Tinyletter.

Readers, I apologize for the atrocious formatting of last week’s newsletter. I have trouble making the UI of TinyLetter work on my laptop–in particular, it never wants to link. So sometimes I cut-and-paste the thing from elsewhere. That seems to have bitten us all in the ass. When I got my copy of my own newsletter, all the words were cut off on the right. It was mortifying, like the time I realized I had taught an entire class with my fly open. Since I am still unable to get the UI to work today, we may face the same issues all over again this week, but since I’m cutting-and-pasting from a different source, perhaps we will face new and exciting issues.

For such a simple service, there are a lot of bugs, especially around formatting. I could never tell how things were going to turn out and I always had to send myself a few previews to make sure that everything looked okay. Even when things did look decent in the email, they still weren’t exactly beautiful on the web archive. There were sometimes separate issues there. As someone who has spent a lot of time in QA, I found the issues to be somewhat maddening.

Beyond the formatting issues, this latest issue of Christman’s newsletter, The Tourist provides an interesting look at the Episcopalian debate around making references to God in their book of common prayer gender-neutral. Christman has thoughts on both sides of the debate.

I recently ran into the gender-neutralization of prayer when at a church event. We recited a prayer that I had said many times as a kid, “God is Great” (a common meal-time blessing). All of the male pronouns were replaced with simply the name of God, though, and I found myself out of step.

Another take on the discussions, from A Bigger Conversation about Liturgy – Covenant, laments the lack of collaboration with other faith traditions that characterize the current conversations around revisions (via @ayjay).

This shouldn’t mean we just borrow the insights of other traditions as ritual toys. One of the faintly tragic elements on display in the 1979 Prayer Book are the numerous borrowings from Orthodox liturgy, which reflect not just scholarly knowledge, but prayerful conversations with Russian and Greek scholars of the mid-20th century who were then genuine dialogue partners. It is hard to find such engagement with eastern Christianity in the Episcopal Church now, beyond the somewhat hollow testimony of facsimile icons in Church bookstores.

If the changes pass, and they are likely to, this will represent another point of division among Christian denominations. The question about whether the value of the changes warrant that unfortunate outcome has a very real and material impact on the body of Christian believers.

While Evangelicals are not likely to make prayers gender-neutral anytime soon, they are sometimes in favor of dropping The Apostles Creed from worship. Christ and Pop Culture has a post on a book by author Ben Myers about The Apostles Creed, arguing that it is ancient creeds like this that serve to unite Christians from different denominational (or even political) backgrounds.

In his new book, The Apostles’ Creed: A Guide to the Ancient Catechism, Ben Myers beautifully articulates the significance of each line of the ancient creed. Even more helpful, Myers keeps one theme running throughout the small book: saying these words is significant not only because they communicate deep truth, but also because they connect us to the global, historic Christian church. There might be nothing more desperately needed in the American church today than the regular reminder that our greatest loyalty is not to our nation or our favored political party, but to fellow believers. Instead of being united by a set of shared political beliefs or geographic origins, we are most strongly united by our devotion to Christ.

The objection some have to The Apostles Creed has to do with the line about the “holy catholic church” (that’s catholic with a small C, a reference to the universal church). As the piece points out, the problem with rejecting that reference pulls us out of the great cloud of witnesses that have gone before us, carrying the banner of the faith that has survived partly because of these flag bearers.

When we discuss these issues that serve to divide, let us keep in mind the words of the Apostle Paul in his first letter to the church in Corinth.

I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.”

Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized in my name. (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. (1 Corinthians 1:10-17)

Life changes are usually best when they are planned. Saturdays are for spontaneity, though, which is why I ended up co-sleeping with a new kitten last night.

I want to work in this office.

This article on the Apple data center in rural Maiden, NC sounds like something written about the Hawkins National Laboratory from Stranger Things before the cover was blown on their experiments. One quote particularly stood out amidst descriptions of the secrecy surrounding the site.

David Vosburgh, a retired construction worker, says he doesn’t know anyone who has been hired there. He has lived in Maiden about 15 years, and says he unsuccessfully applied for a job at the data center.

“Something is going on over there that they don’t want people knowing,” Vosburgh said in an interview last month. “They’re always building. They’re very, very, very, very bad people. My opinion is they’re terrible.”

Vosburgh doesn’t elaborate on why the Apple people are so bad, or at least the article did not capture his further thoughts on the subject. However, the piece does make clear that Apple was fined for violating some environmental regulations regarding waste disposal.

The whole situation has a very clandestine, conspiratorial vibe to it.

📷 Light room. This installation at the NC Museum of Art was truly impressive.

From @vasta, thoughts shared on the beauty of nightswimming.

A celebratory vision of paradise from @restlesslens.

Social media intern used to sound like a dream job but now it seems like the most fraught gig ever.

The main response I hear to the Netflix documentary series Wild Wild Country is disbelief that the events depicted in the show actually took place (in America, no less). Jen Chaney, from Vulture, takes a stab at encapsulating the insanity.

It is a story that involves religion, free love, land use disputes, one of the co-founders of Nike, an exalted guru, abuse of power, arson, the wife of one of the producers of The Godfather, attempted murder, mass poisoning, an obsession with Rolls-Royces, the homeless, election battles, and one extremely bizarre anecdote about attempting to contaminate a town’s water supply using blended beaver parts. That is only the tip of the iceberg. “Someone will write a book about this,” an Oregon official says in footage that appears in episode one, “and I will guarantee you when that book comes out, people will say that it’s fiction.” In the ’80s, he couldn’t have imagined Netflix, or anticipated a docuseries like this one.

It’s easy to see why a show including all of those elements would make for incredibly compelling television. The series is much more than mere spectacle, though. The stories woven within the broader narrative are so human, simultaneously relatable and repulsive. The brothers Way, makers of the documentary, weave a tale that declines to take sides in what amounted to a war between a free love fringe religious group and their small town mom and apple pie Oregonian neighbors. Each of the sides have their talking heads that are allowed plenty of screen time to comment on the various events that took place when Baghwan Shree Rajneesh and his followers moved onto a 60,000 acre ranch next to rural Antelope, OR. The tales they tell drip with sadness, fear, happiness, elation, betrayal, naivety, love, hate, optimism and disappointment.

As a Christian, it’s hard for me to relate to a group who dresses in one color, follows a guru whose name (Baghwan) is god in Hindi and wear malas (necklaces that contain a picture of the guru). When they line up to greet the Rolls Royce caravan of Rajneesh with tears of joy, it looks a lot like worship, reminiscent of yet contrasting with the Palm Sunday story of Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey and being met with enthusiastic followers waving palms. The purposeful displays of opulence that the guru engages in run counter to the teachings of most religions about how spiritual leaders are supposed to live. When people in both the East and the West picture a spiritual leader, we see asceticism the kind of which was eschewed by Rajneesh. Also troublesome is the free love version of human sexuality to which the group subscribed. Its opposition to traditional marriage and the aspirational narcissism of a relentless pursuit for individual enlightenment raises serious concerns about how children were raised. In fact, children are hardly mentioned in the documentary. These things can certainly be alienating to those of us who value ancient institutions that have shaped the fabric of society.

On the other hand, it’s easy to sympathize with the Rajneeshees in many ways. Most of the members could probably be most accurately described as “seekers” looking for a set of truths with which to frame their world view. It’s not hard to imagine that the group of Rajneeshees might have been fairly harmless to its neighbors, had their presence been merely tolerated and not opposed outright. Most of the incidences of aggression or even suggested violence were responses to the US government or citizens blocking activities that were initiated by the group. Ultimately, though, when faced with opposition, their primitive system of values proved deficient in that it didn’t have guide rails to prevent them from carrying heinous acts against outsiders or even themselves.

Bonus points go to the series for being named after a line in a Bill Callahan song and including music from him as well as Damien Jurado and other indie-folk heroes.

Better food labeling.

On this Independence Day, when we celebrate the birth of our nation and honor what that means to us, there is division in the air and on the ground. I find it a most appropriate time to bring discussion to the state of the union and I’m happy that the church to which I belong, the Presbyterian Church USA, recently clarified some political positions. It is not mandated that all churches within the denomination to affirm the declaration that was made, but it is hoped that it will bring about some fruitful discussion and a careful consideration of where the Spirit is leading us as Christians.

“As confessing Christians, we trust God, whom we know through Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray as others pray in other names.
We are obligated to declare our concerns about the direction towards autocracy that our country is taking.
We say Yes to God’s power of love and justice for the neighbor as well as the self, and we say No to demonic power that urges hate of the other, scatters blame, and creates civic discord.
We say Yes to our imperfect democracy with one person, one vote, and No to any corruption of our elections.
We say Yes to universal health care and No to care based on the ability to pay.
We say Yes to safe schools, houses of worship, and public gathering places; and No to civilian access to assault and/or military-style weapons.
We say Yes to core human values and No to dividing our humanity by ideology and partisanship.
We say Yes to bridges and preservation of families and No to walls.
We say Yes to affirming and celebrating the full spectra of human identity and No to discrimination and bigotry.
We say: ‘In life, and in death we belong to God.’”

RIP Richard “Dicky” Ochoa Swift Onassis. We have lost a very talented man.

It’s also very sobering when someone the same age suddenly dies.

A good piece on how passionate politics can still be civil, respectful.

📚 A Column of Fire (Kingsbridge Trilogy) by Ken Follett: Although Follett’s characters can feel a bit thin and archetypal at times, the stories he weaves within the constraints of historical facts are magnificent. I zipped through this long book.

One thing that angers me a great deal is the misappropriation of passages from Holy Scripture. Tyler Huckabee writes in Relevent Magazine on the dangers of dividing the Bible up into bite-size chunks appropriate for bumper sticker sloganeering:

An unfortunate consequence of littering the Bible with the little demarcating numbers we call “chapter and verse” is the ease with which it allows the Bible to be split up piecemeal. We study and memorize the Bible in bite-sized chunks, just long enough to fit on a day calendar or scribble on a bathroom mirror. Chapters and verses are useful things for finding your place, but they can give the impression that each sentence of the Bible was spoken in a vacuum, with no pertinent information around it. Using Romans 13 to defend obeying the government, as Jeff Sessions did, is a bit like using Moby Dick to defend mid-1800s whaling practices.

This particular moment in time has made it manifestly clear just how deficient a theology can be when it is built this way. Christians who claim to be adherents to the Bible seem to miss many of the themes that consistently run throughout the text.

The real secret of living according to the will of God is not to collect enough Bible verses to defend your latest socio-political fancy but to let God transform you entirely. Not to bend God’s Word to your will, but exactly the other way around. And to do that, you must take in the whole of Scripture, every jot and tittle. It’s not easy.

Huckabee is right that it’s not easy to get the bigger picture within scripture. That is why study is necessary and communities of faith are important.

Flowers in bloom in downtown Raleigh.

Aaron Belz turns the best of list into poetry in Piloting from 2001.

SNL imagine sitcom producers dealing with the hockey stick curve rise in identity politics in The Dudleys.