Afterwords -- highlight reel
January 12, 2024
Dear friends,
This week's newsletter will be a little different. I'm not feeling any creative energy for writing. I've started several posts that are at the midway point and have stalled with a sigh. So, this week I'm just going to give you highlights from what I've been reading. I'll let somebody else be creative this week!
READING HIGHLIGHTS.
-- "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you." (Isaiah 60:1) [Daily Bible reading in Isaiah.]
-- "The secret is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances." (Elisabeth Elliot, in Becoming Elisabeth Elliot, by Ellen Vaughn)
-- "But is it not rather that art rescues nature from the weary and sated regards of our senses, and the degrading injustice of our anxious everyday life, and, appealing to the imagination, which dwells apart, reveals Nature in some degree as she really is, and as she represents herself to the eye of the child, whose every-day life, fearless and unambitious, meets the true import of the wonder-teeming world around him, and rejoices therein without questioning?" (George MacDonald, Phantastes)
-- "You cannot be, I know, nor do I wish to see you, an inactive spectator... We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them." (Abigail Adams, from John Adams, by David McCullough)
-- "...rendering back one's will which we have so long claimed for our own, is, in itself, extraordinarily painful. To surrender a self-will inflamed and swollen with years of usurpation is a kind of death." (C. S. Lewis, in The Question of God, by Armand Nicholi, Jr.) [This just in: a new movie based upon this book is being released!]
RANDOM ARTICLES...
-- "Would this new chapter be one of rest or work? The answer, it’s turned out, is both." (Mike Minter, retired from his pastorate at Reston Bible Church, writes about lessons he's learned.)
-- "A serious Christian school must have high standards of hiring. It has to have an explicit, orthodox Christian mission and it has to hire administrators, faculty, and staff for that mission." (Bob Benne, on the present and future stability of colleges with Christian traditions) Read "Only the Orthodox Will Survive."
-- Brett McCracken rates Godzilla Minus One at the top of last year's best movies.
LISTENING TO...
-- "How can we turn our knowledge about God into knowledge of God? The rule for doing this is simple but demanding. It is that we turn each truth that we learn about God into matter for meditation before God, leading to prayer and praise to God." (J. I. Packer, Knowing God, audiobook.) Excerpt about meditation here.
WATCHING...
-- We're enjoying Season 4 of All Creatures Great and Small on PBS.
-- We have discovered how delicious are hardboiled eggs with a dash of Grey Poupon.
-- I've often thought that coffee shops should have two lines: one for just-coffee-thank-you (like an express line), and one for those who want build my-favorite-complicated-specialty-drink. Here's Nate Bargatze on "How To Order Artisanal Coffee."
And that's the highlight reel for this week!
Sandy
Photo: below, the Blacksburg Post Office (University City Blvd) this week. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
