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11. My wife Christine is an amazing photographer. You can see her work on Flickr or hire her.

2013 trajectories

1. Draw every day*
2. Be sillier
3. Spend more time playing with family and friends

*Yes, this does mean The Reverend and Amy will be happening again, but not until February. I have big college assignments due this month.

2 January 2013
tags: creativity, hope
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Way more cheery than you might think at first

If you grew up in the charismatic wing (and probably a number of other wings) of church, you were probably told six or seven million times that you were destined to be a WORLD CHANGER. In this talk I gave a couple weeks ago, I argue that the bible says no such thing, and furthermore you probably won’t change the world, and furthermost that’s completely okay. I also talk about not being visionary and God’s promise of uncertainty. A number of people told me that it was a good and useful message. It might be good and useful for you too. Bonus: it’s only 20 minutes long. Have a listen.

7 August 2012
tags: hope, uncertainty
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Creation re-rewritten

Professor Christine Hayes shows how the creation accounts of Genesis, in opposition to the Babylonian idea of Earth as a result of arrogant violent warring gods, brilliantly re-imagine the origin of the world as God’s word causing harmony to spring from formlessness (lectures two and three).

In a kind of similar way, Kurt Willems shows how the gospel of John brilliantly re-imagines the Genesis creation stories to demonstrate the origin of a new creation through Jesus.

Happy Easter!

7 April 2012
tags: holidays, hope, kingdom of god
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Re: Enjoy your Big Mac

Just to be clear. The problem with fast food is not the people doing the jobs on the ground, either in the feedlot or in the supermarkets and restaurants – my soon-to-be daughter-in-law works at McDonald’s, and I’m proud of her strong work ethic and the good job she does. The problem is the system. And the system is viable because we consumers all buy into it. At which point someone says, then what’s the point in me changing? What I do doesn’t actually make a difference. I reply with a little boy, starfish and ideas about reclaiming your soul.

2 February 2012
tags: food, hope
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Hope for the new year

In the same way, hope doesn’t depend on a sense of entitlement that insists the universe is obligated to provide us with whatever happy ending we think we want, and in any real sense, it’s incompatible with notions of that kind. Hope is the quality of character and the act of will that finds some good that can be achieved, no matter what the circumstances, and then strives to achieve it. The sense of entitlement, in turn, is precisely equivalent to the belief that victory is inevitable, and it produces the same sort of brittleness; it’s for that reason that it tends to collapse into despair, and it’s despair, ultimately, that feeds fantasies of the apocalyptic event that will make everything different.

Emphasis mine. Read the whole essay by John Michael Greer.

30 December 2011
tags: hope, john michael greer, quotes
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The strength and frailty of hope

13 December 2011
tags: holidays, hope, jesus
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