The Beautiful Game, Marie Kondo, and my new wardrobe.
Friends,
This time around we hear a professor of literature explain the beauty of soccer, discover Marie Kondo’s one flaw, and find out why my wardrobe was drastically simplified this weekend.
But first, some solid advice from an Archbishop on keeping relationships (and your sanity).
One of the big lessons of life is this: A sound guide to staying married, staying friends, or simply staying sane is to remember and honor the good in things before criticizing the bad.
That is worth re-reading a time or two, isn’t it?
Honor the good in things before criticizing the bad.
This is almost an aside from his book Strangers in a Strange Land, which I highly recommend. It could be considered an alternative of sorts to The Benedict Option. Certainly much overlap between these two books, but so far I like the more Augustinian flavor of Strangers in a Strange Land.
Baylor Honors College Professor Alan Jacobs on ‘The Beautiful Game’
The Beautiful Game is, of course, soccer. (Or football as the rest of the planet refers to it.) A few World Cups back, I began to slowly enjoy the game of soccer, having never played it competitively myself.
Some highlights are below, along with a link to the full article.
At the risk of oversimplification: The offside rule decrees that a player may not pass the ball to a teammate unless, at the moment of the pass, two members of the opposing side are closer to the goal than that teammate. …Almost all of the wonderful patterns and geometries of soccer are generated by this one rule, which also generates something that many non-fans greatly dislike: a paucity of goals.
Scoring should not be easy, and, as with gold and diamonds, there’s a link between rarity and value. The true fan delights in players who have not just the physical gifts but also the imagination to circumvent the rules that seem designed specifically to prevent scoring.
If you have the time, I think you will find Alan Jacob’s take fascinating.
Marie Kondo: Cute, Tidy, and Wrong about Books?
Like roughly 90% of the rest of the human population, Viv and I love us some Marie Kondo.
But, she may be DEAD WRONG about books, at least according to another Japanese organizational philosophy.
Preaching on February 10th
If you are looking for an excuse to come check out Church of the Incarnation (perhaps you have recently discovered that you might have a touch of Anglican somewhere deep down inside your soul?) you may want to know that I am preaching as part of our series on the Twelve Apostles this Sunday. Let me know if you want more details about time/location/etc.
Finally, I was ordained a Deacon on February 2nd
It was a full, rich day. Thank you to all who were able to make it out. (For those who missed, don’t worry: you will have one final chance when I am, D.V., ordained a Priest this Summer/Fall.)
