January 2011
23 posts
“[Writing is] like standing on the edge of a cliff. This is especially true of...”
– Peter Carey (via theparisreview)
Albert Goldbarth, "The Way"
The sky is random. Even calling it “sky” is an attempt to make a meaning, say, a shape, from the humanly visible part of shapelessness in endlessness. It’s what we do, in some ways it’s entirely what we do—and so the devastating rose of a galaxy’s being born, the fatal lamé of another’s being torn and dying, we frame in the lenses of our super-duper telescopes the way we would those other...
not quite "times of war," but still...
I just read this quote from W. H. Auden: “In times of war even the crudest kind of positive affection between persons seems extraordinarily beautiful, a noble symbol of the peace and forgiveness of which the whole world stands so desperately in need.”
And it reminded me of the picture everybody, including me, has been passing around on the internet.
Just wanted to note the...
“Anyone, I think, who reads a novel for pleasure or instruction takes an interest...”
– Edward Mendelson (via)
“I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but...”
– Gustave Flaubert
“I recall a conversation between Oprah and [Toni] Morrison in which Oprah...”
– Michael Jinkins, “Incomprehensible Theology”
“I also read the Bible for the first time. It was deep! I liked the parts where...”
– Lil Wayne
“Separation anxiety is assuaged by constant connection. Young people announce...”
– Jaron Lanier, You Are Not a Gadget. (Related: my favorite quote about Twitter, from Time magazine’s article a while ago by Steven Johnson: “The weather reports keep announcing that the sky is falling, but here we are — millions of us — sitting around trying to invent new ways to talk to...
“Our greatest protection is self-knowledge, and to avoid the delusion that we are...”
– Gregory of Nyssa, Commentary on the Song of Songs
Jaron Lanier's advice for remaining a person on...
Don’t post anonymously unless you really might be in danger.
If you put effort into Wikipedia articles, put even more effort into using your personal voice and expression outside of the wiki to attract people who don’t yet realize that they are interested in the topics you contributed to.
Create a website that expresses something about who you are that won’t fit into the...
“Friendship is being with the other in joy and sorrow, even when we cannot...”
– Henri Nouwen (thanks, Margie)
“I’m not exactly a slow writer—when I’m really cooking I can do 800-1,000 good,...”
– Michael Chabon (via ayjay)
“The topic of a Christian understanding of homosexuality and a Christian and...”
– Mark A. Yarhouse, “At the Intersection of Religious and Sexual Identities: A Christian Perspective on Homosexuality.” (I’m honored to be quoted in this essay.)
“Augustine argues that the imitation of Scripture in the speech of a preacher is...”
– Lewis Ayres
“Technology can be positive in an Orwellian sense. I feel like a kind of “Winston...”
– Gary Shteyngart
“This historic Christian doctrine of the divinity of Christ does not simply mean...”
– Elton Trueblood
(thanks, Misty)
W. H. Auden, "For Friends Only (for John and...
Ours yet not ours, being set apart As a shrine to friendship, Empty and silent most of the year, This room awaits from you What you alone, as visitor, can bring, A week-end of personal life.
In a house backed by orderly woods, Facing a tractored sugar-beet country, Your working hosts engaged to their stint, You are unlike to encounter Dragons or romance: were drama a craving, You would not have...
“[O]ne’s vocation [as a Christian] is found exactly on the crest between...”
– Paul Evdokimov