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Memoir

Remembering Tim Keller

Here’s a gift link to the story the Washington Post just put up about the death of Tim Keller: https://wapo.st/41Rt8wg. As a subscriber, I can create gift links that allow nonsubscribers to read. So there you go. But I want to say a couple of things too. The article says: “Dr. Keller was 24 when…

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Faith and politics

Democracy, Christianity, abortion

Wednesday night’s post by Heather Cox Richardson (you should read it) illustrates the central problematic in American politics: the alliance between fascist-leaning politics and selected conservative Christian values pertaining to sex. With my background, I can see clearly that antipathy toward abortion always has been and always must be a feature of authentic Christian faith.…

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Caledonia Community Schools

Rufo has dropped his mask. Can we move on now?

Here you have it, friends. In his latest blog post, the pseudo-intellectual-in-chief of the control-or-destroy-public-schools movement states his strategy. I was going to say “explicitly” but of course it’s veiled in a fabric of faux-learned (Look, people! I know that Aristotle used a Greek word!) feints and fabrications, powered by appeals to the basest racial…

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Caledonia Community Schools

Everyone Needs Compassion

At the monthly meetings of the Board of Education of Caledonia Community School, members of the public are allowed to make three-minute addresses to the trustees. Here is what I said tonight. Two words from me tonight: compassion and sex. Compassion comes first. And last. I know a song: “Everyone needs compassion.” It’s true. Life…

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Bible study

Divisions and factions

But if anyone is disposed to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor do the churches of God. Now in this instruction that I give you I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For, to begin with, when you come together…

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Faith and politics

Angela Rigas and the “God-given right” to possess and use guns with no restrictions whatsoever

So Angela Rigas, Michigan state representative for the district in which I live, considers red-flag laws (extreme-risk protection orders), universal background checks, and requirements for safe storage of guns to be violations of the Second Amendment. Most Americans do not. Americans (and Michiganians) have differing opinions on all sorts of things. On some questions relating…

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Caledonia Community Schools

Unofficial notes on the 1/16/2022 Caledonia Community Schools board meeting

I attended the January 16 meeting of the Caledonia school board and took notes. These are my personal, unofficial notes. There are certainly omissions, and there may be errors. The videorecording of the meeting was posted yesterday, so you can verify anything there. For the public comment section, I have added the hour/minute/second reference for…

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Caledonia Community Schools

Fears and hopes

These are the remarks that I read during public comment time at the Caledonia Community Schools board meeting this evening. First, to the three elected in November: congratulations. To the four continuing: you have served well. Thank you. Here is what I fear, and what I hope. First: what I fear. I am one of…

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Memoir

Pay your democracy tax: support newspapers

I delivered the Richmond Times-Dispatch to two routes in my hometown by bicycle six days a week throughout my middle school and high school years. After I added the second route my father insisted on driving me around the route in the ’63 Fairlane on Sundays and when the weather was horrible. I was up…

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Caledonia Community Schools

January 6, Angela Rigas, and the way forward

Yale historian Timothy Snyder has posted a 15-fact summary of the January 6 committee’s report. You should stop now and read it if you have not already. I said yesterday (in a FaceBook post) that no one can be surprised by continuing revelations of Trump’s misdeeds. Anyone with clear moral vision knew what Trump was,…

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Caledonia Community Schools

School Board Meeting 12/12/2022

These are the notes that I took during the meeting. To verify details, see the meeting video when it is posted, and the official minutes. I captured text from the slides that were shown on the monitors in the room and included it in my notes. Here are what I consider the high points of…

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Faith and life

Remembering a funeral at a wedding

Every morning my iPad Pro somehow chooses a picture to feature in the little photos gadget on its home screen. This morning it is this photo from July 21, 2021. Here my mother, Dolores, is seated on the little side deck of her house in Hopewell VA with my niece Lauren. This is the house…

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Bible study

Through the storm

What if you are in a storm, surrounded by enemies and headed for shipwreck? And what difference does it make if God is there in the storm with you?

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Faith and politics

In absentia

In case anyone wonders why the verba are even sparser here than usual these days, it’s because most of my meager time and energy for this sort of thing are going into my campaign website and Facebook page. That’s right, friends, I’m running for office. Please do have a look at those two places. [As…

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Bible study

All those who practice it (Psalm 111)

Psalm 111 is a beautiful psalm of praise. It praises the character of God not as an abstraction but as manifested in God’s works. Note the recurrence of “works,” “work,” “deeds,” and various action verbs (highlighted in pink in the photo). Note also that among God’s works are God’s precepts. God not only gives food…

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Faith and politics

Keeping the Declaration of Equality

Another Independence Day rolls around. Heather Cox Richardson has written a brief essay for the occasion. You should read it. It refers, fittingly, to the Declaration of Independence. I want to say a little bit about the Declaration myself. Note that the document itself is not titled “Declaration of Independence.” We are in the habit…

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Faith and politics

Story problems

Once you start down the road of insisting that the only permissible stories are ones that align with your sense of how the world ought to be, you are on the road to ideological indoctrination.

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Bible study

On reading Psalm 93

The Lord is “robed in majesty,” yes, and high and lifted up, but the scripture he has given us: it is given through our own mouths, and portrays our own plight, is right down here on the ground with us, in the mud and the blood and the gore.

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