Half Past Noon

Everyone should take the “post something” challenge. I challenge y’all to post something.

Pastor Wilson dislikes the rhetoric of Michael Pollan, the “food-like substances” bit. The Velveeta he’s given thanks for in childhood is food, indeed. But it’s hard to deny the rhetoric when manufacturers themselves use it. No real ingredients = food product:

To love at all is to be vulnerable.

Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken.

If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal.

Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.

But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change.

It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, p. 121:

Yitta Schwartz died last month aged 93. It’s estimated she may have had over 2000 living descendants, including more than 200 grandchildren.

Link to the Obituary

People who didn’t live pre-Internet can’t grasp how devoid of ideas life in my hometown was. The only bookstores sold Bibles the size of coffee tables and dashboard Virgin Marys that glowed in the dark. I stopped in the middle of the SAT to memorize a poem, because I thought, This is a great work of art and I’ll never see it again.

Mary Karr – best interview ever

I read this somewheres and it resonates with my limited personal experience.

When we tell stories, we start at the chronological beginning and move to the chronological end. The most important part is the *plot*.

When the poor tell stories, they start at the chronological *end* or the part with the greatest emotional intensity. They tell the story in vignettes with audience interaction in between. It ends with a comment about the character’s values. The most important part is the *characterization*.

I don’t think it’s controversial to say that different classes have different bodies of common / assumed knowledge, and to change classes or work to interact well with a different class might necessarily involve a sacrifice of ease in ones current relationships.

“I think one of the under-recognized strengths of Lost is how the structure of the storytelling reflects what the show is about. Long before the characters started traveling through time, we were traveling through time, via flashbacks and flash-forwards. And now it seems that this season—in which the story is split between two realities—is going to be devoted to alternate realities within the two realities. Choosing a side in the coming island conflict isn’t just a matter of allying with friends against enemies. It’s also about subscribing to a worldview. It’s about picking a reality to live in.” Noel Murray

This film looks fascinating. A documentary about our food system with no commentary, no talking heads, no talking at all.

Our Daily Bread

“wise man leaves an inheritance” and such. I have a few to kick it off. Help me add to the list:

Your office job.
Anything you bought from Walmart.
Your iPhone, TV, etc.

“a mission that rejects violence as a way to ground peaceful community and instead witnesses to the Lord’s life of rejection and crucifixion by living it in publicly perceivable communities derisively called Christian.”

Great First Things article.