This month Slate’s Audio book club has chosen John Cheever’s "The Swimmer" and Flannery O’Connor’s "A Good Man Is Hard To Find.” I encourage you to read both (O’Connor is more important thought) but the discussion their writers have is worth listening too.
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Easy Listening
mshedden
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mshedden
Greenlake with Benedict
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Good Reads
mshedden
Perhaps it is time to revive the long Christian tradition that regarded old age as a theatre of virtue and courage. Aging was imagined as a kind of final transaction, whereby the elderly show what the good life looks like, having finally reached the point where they can drop all pretense and start telling the story of their lives honestly – or, to put it in a more Augustinian fashion, to tell the story of their lives as an unbroken confession of sin enabled by God’s grace.
This worries me. Can the church maintain a “learned clergy” without instilling a love of books? Is it possible that books are really passé as some say? That in the future the digital age will restrict if not eliminate their use? I hope not.Because books are more than mere information.Throughout my life they have always been my companions and friends. They can invoke wonder and create mystery. They can witness to faith. They are grist for my sermonic mill. But they are more than that. They fuel not just my work but my imagination. I wouldn’t be the minister I am without them. I wouldn’t be who I am without them’.
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mshedden
What I say, and I say it to all those quoted in the previous paragraph, is what religion are you talking about? The religions I know are about nothing but doubt and dissent, and the struggles of faith, the dark night of the soul, feelings of unworthiness, serial backsliding, the abyss of despair. Whether it is the book of Job, the Confessions of St. Augustine, Calvin’s Institutes, Bunyan’s “Grace Abounding to The Chief of Sinners,” Kierkegaard’s “Fear and Trembling” and a thousand other texts, the religious life is depicted as one of aspiration within the conviction of frailty. The heart of that life, as Eagleton reminds us, is not a set of propositions about the world (although there is some of that), but an orientation toward perfection by a being that is radically imperfect.
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mshedden
This an awkward blog format but it should do well during the transition period of figuring out what I am going to with this space. To make this not the lamest post in the world here is a picture from this weekend. I don’t consider myself a photographer but I thought I needed a new hobby this winter (besides reading) that I could do alone.
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Cleared Blog
mshedden
Today I cleared the entire blog. With Graduation I thought I should start something anew and the blog was the first thing I thought. In a little while I back at it.
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mahtso
Congratulations! At the risk of doing the work of your parents: How about something new, like a job?!
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Kevin
Congrats. Looking forward to the new blog!
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mshedden
Thanks Guys,
Working on the job thing. Churches can be a little slow but hopefully something turns up soon. -
mahtso
“Churches can be a little slow…” Then it looks like Ph.D. (or what ever it is they call it in your field)
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Russell 3:32 pm on June 13, 2009 Permalink |
Awesome. Where is this?
Chris 10:01 pm on June 14, 2009 Permalink |
Great pic, Matt. I hope Bennie didn’t fall in the lake again.