“I have been bad, but not as bad as that fellow” is something that fellow says all the time.
I Like To Start The Year Off With Something Bracing, Lest Complacency Set In
My latest for CiRCE is about the present direction of classical Christian schools.
Resolve To Quit Social Media In 2021
My latest for CiRCE offers nine reasons why quitting social media will make your life better. Use the centrifugal force of a new calendar to help you do so.
A Tautology
“Organized religion” is redundant. Religion is organized by definition. If it’s not organized, it’s something other than religion. Art, perhaps. Or play acting.
What Pleasure Thou Canst Give Me
Mark Kozalek Sings Christmas Carols is a real piece of work. The former Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon singer performs a bunch of hymns and a handful of pop tunes, but the hymns carry it away. While Kozalek is not a Christian, he seems to have chosen the oldest possible carol texts to sing. There are a few light-hearted moments on the record, but Kozalek avoids being cute or clever on the hymns. There are no new twists on old favorites here. Just a man and his guitar thoughtfully, respectfully rendering old tunes.
The lyrics he chose for “O Christmas Tree” are gorgeous, a theological meditation on evergreen trees.
December 31, 2019
Revelers gather in Times Square on December 31, 2019. They welcome 2020, sure to be a year of prosperity, hope, and joyous new beginnings.
It Is My Fault
Over the last twenty years, it has become fashionable for young men to blame all the problems of the world on “the church,” by which I mean saying things like “Poverty and racism wouldn’t be a problem if the church would just be the church” with an authoritative, I-know-what-the-word-“liturgy”-means kind of tone.
My latest for CiRCE is about blaming the church, why it’s a terrible idea, and why it is better to blame yourself instead.
Top 5 Songs of 2020
5. It Just Doesn’t Happen, Destroyer
4. Starfall, Salem
3. Texas Sun, Khurangbin & Leon Bridges
2. Inspirit, Julianna Barwick
1.Carousels, Doves
Top 10 Albums of 2020
10. 1995, Kruder & Dorfmeister
9. Black Swallow, by Chihei Hatakeyama
8. Green (reissue), Hiroshi Yoshimura
7. 76:14 (box set reissue), Global Communication
6. Another Flower, Harold Budd and Robin Guthrie
5. Una Presencia En La Brisa, Rafael Anton Irisarri & Leandro Fresco
4. Mixing Colours, Roger and Brian Eno
3. Healing Is A Miracle, Julianna Barwick
2. A Soul Ascends, Steve Roach
1. Have We Met, Destroyer
O, Christmas Tree
“Simply put, a tradition is the past.”
My latest for CiRCE is about Christmas trees in particular and traditions in general.
It is a delicate point I try to make in this essay. I have attempted it a few times before, but find it endlessly refinable: there is some sense in which knowing the origin of a tradition is not terribly important. Traditions are not mnemonic devices anymore than knives or aspirin are mnemonic devices. Traditions are real and potent in and of themselves.
There are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity. 