Happy Friday,
I will not fear though tens of thousands assail me on every side.
Psalm 3:6
Psalm 3 is a favorite. Though I seldom struggle with fear, there are days when it feels like I have ten thousand problems. I particularly appreciate knowing that David wrote this while fleeing from Absalom, which means he wrote it while facing problems of his own doing, and the older I get, the more I realize that most of my headaches are my fault. There is comfort to be found when we relocate our hope in God. He offers a peace able to overrun family concerns, market losses, health issues, and political nonsense.
Without Comment: 1) According to this report, average screen time per person is 6 hrs and 40 min/day (globally) and 7 hrs and 3 min/day (US), with nearly half of US teens logging more than 8 hours per day; 2) According to this Free Press article, all 87 of NPR’s 87 DC reporters are registered Democrats; and 3) According to this Gallup report, Americans — especially women under the age of 50 — are sleeping less and stressing more.
Two WSJ Articles: I think Peggy Noonan’s summary of Jonathan Haidt’s work (about children and smartphones), and this piece about the mental health benefits of going to church are worth reading. I also thought it was quite ironic that The Atlantic put “Democracy Dies Behind Paywalls” — a piece about the need to drop paywalls between now and the election — behind a paywall.
IS2M: 1) For someone who is not a Christian, Jordan Peterson spends a lot of time talking about Jesus; 2) It seems unlikely that many voters will change their minds between now and November — although I do think they may change their votes; 3) Married couples attending a wedding should look beyond the pageantry and really listen to the vows — in fact, they should make them again in their heart; 4) We were better off when it was common to talk about finishing the race or graduating to glory, instead of passing, slipping away, losing the battle or succumbing. There is life after life, and we cannot live well here if we do not keep that top of mind; 5) Many are not just elevating feelings over reason; they are becoming anti-reason.
WOTW: Everyone must have been so busy watching the Masters or following the WNBA draft that they forgot to send in their nominations for Word of the Week. Left entirely on my own, I am selecting poverty buttons. My new car is not tricked out to one of my son’s tastes. Getting in, he noted that it had a lot of poverty buttons — i.e., buttons that do nothing because I didn’t get “the full package.” I had not noticed, being too overwhelmed by all the ways it was chirping at me or trying to take over steering. Indeed, had he not used the term poverty button, I might have gone with Nanny State.
Car Talk: As much as I have enjoyed Click and Clack, who hosted NPR’s car show, the header was just a tease to set up this: I want to talk to NPR’s leadership in much the same way I want to talk to the guy who stole my car. You may remember my 2013 Hyundai was totaled because the thief drove it so fast he blew out the engine. If I could find him, I’d say, “Dude, when driving a stolen car, don’t be so clueless as to get pulled over for speeding.” In the same way, I’d like to say to NPR’s leadership, “when someone who likes you tries to point out some blind spots, don’t be so clueless — and self-righteous — as to suspend them.” NPR’s response to the whistleblower has been casebook cringeworthy. It’s evolving as I write this, but here is the critic’s first piece and NPR’s initial response. He was subsequently suspended and later resigned.
Quotes Worth Requoting: 1) “Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.” Colin Powell; 2) “Circumstances may appear to wreck our lives and God’s plans, but God is not helpless among the ruins.” Eric Liddell; 3) “If you want to summarize the changes in family structure over the past century, the truest thing to say is this: We’ve made life freer for individuals and more unstable for families.” David Brooks
A Longer Quote Too Good to Skip: This CS Lewis quote from On Living in an Atomic Age (1948) is worth taking to heart. “In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. ‘How are we to live in an atomic age?’ I am tempted to reply: ‘Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.’ In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty. This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.”
Closing Prayer: O Lord Jesus Christ, I long to live in your presence, to see your human form and to watch you walking on earth. I do not want to see you through the darkened glass of tradition, nor through the eyes of today’s values and prejudices. I want to see you as you were, as you are, and as you always will be. I want to see you as an offense to human pride, as a man of humility, walking amongst the lowliest of men, and yet as the savior and redeemer of the human race. Amen. (Søren Kierkegaard, 1813 – 1855)