Happy Friday,

“We all, who with unveiled faces behold the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image from one degree of glory to another.”

                                                                                                         Paul, 2 Corinthians 3:18

According to Paul, attention drives transformation. First, we shape our attention, and then our attention shapes us. When our eyes are fixed on Jesus, our lives fall into place. But ours is an age of attentional onslaught, barraged by interruptions. Overcoming the noise requires cultivating habits of distraction-resistance. What do you need to push to the margins so that Christ can be the center of your attention in 2024?

Brady Filling in for Bledsoe: Mike is out until January 5th, and I’m second string. My name is Glenn Wishnew. I’m the Associate Director of the Lakelight Institute, a new Christ Church-launched 501C3. We host talks, we sell (Mike’s) books, and we offer classes — more on that below.

From the Dystopian Novel A Brave New World: “But all the same,” insisted the Savage, “it is natural to believe in God when you’re alone –— quite alone, in the night, thinking about death…” “But people never are alone now,” said Mustapha Mond. “We make them hate solitude; and we arrange their lives so that it’s almost impossible for them to have it.” For those of you who didn’t read in high school (me), Aldous Huxley wrote that in 1933.

Numbers (With Comment): 1) 8% — the percentage of Americans who report that they have no close friends. 2) 2.9013 — the ratio of positive to negative interactions that make a corporate team successful. It takes three positive interactions to outweigh a negative one. 3) 0.6% — the probability that the Chicago Bears will make the playoffs. 4) 0% — the probability that the Church loses out to the gates of hell.

IS2M (It Seems to Me): 1) The style of jeans you wear reveals the generation you belong to. 2) Understanding technology as “merely a tool we can use for good or for ill” was a society-wide mistake of the past 40 years, and we are suffering for it. Notice it was assumed by both Right and Left. 3) The number of parents prioritizing their child’s short-term comfort over their long-term character is increasing, and that’s not good. 4) The number of parents who would sacrifice their lives for their child hasn’t decreased at all, and that’s good — very good.

“I Am Not Going to Let You Fail.”: Marva Collins founded Westside Preparatory School, a private elementary school in the impoverished Garfield Park neighborhood of Chicago, in 1975. This is what she had to say to Freddie, a second grader, on the first day of school: “Come on, peach. We have work to do… I promise, you are going to do and you are going to produce. I am not going to let you fail.” Formerly called “learning disabled” by his first-grade teacher, Freddie was reading Shakespeare by May. Marva Collins believed in Freddie, and his life was never the same. Who was a Marva Collins in your life? And who can you be a Marva Collins to?

Quotes Worth Requoting: 1) “Your religion is what you do with your solitude.” — William Temple 2) “I wish to have as my epitaph: ‘Here lies a man who was wise enough to bring into his service men who knew more than he.’” — Andrew Carnegie 3) “Anger is never without a reason but seldom a good one.” — Benjamin Franklin

Quote For Your Critics: “To anyone I’ve offended, I just want to say, I [insert top career accomplishments]… Did you think I was also going to be a chill, normal dude?’” — Elon Musk, also Mike, when he reads your emails.

WOTY, Written by Mike Himself: Honorable mention for the 2023 Word of the Year goes to reality-challenged (today, many are rich enough to temporarily suspend reality) and fan service (the business plan of a number of today’s newspapers). Full honors go to social acceleration, a term I ran across while reading Carl Trueman’s 2023 Erasmus Lecture entitled, “The Desecration of Man.” Readers of The Update are aware that I have been whining about making note of the increasing “volume and velocity of modern culture.” Social acceleration — which Trueman picked up from Hartmut Rosa, a German sociologist — is just the word I have been looking for. BTW, speaking of the future, my guess is that pre-war will be a contender for 2024 WOTY. I am hearing that the world has moved past the post-Cold War era into a pre-war one. Ugh. (I’m praying that 2024 will be marked by social deceleration instead.) 

Resources: You can listen to Mike’s Isaiah 53 sermon here. Full disclosure: he told me to put this in here. But he’s also my boss’s boss — so I guess it was a good sermon.

C.S. Lewis: Early next year, Mike will be teaching a Lakelight class on C.S. Lewis. You will hear more as the first day of class approaches. For now, block off Tuesdays starting on January 30 and running through March 5. 

Thanks for Considering: As a Lakelight employee, I would be remiss if I did not invite you to make a year-end gift to this new venture. We have had a very good inaugural year, but there is so much more to do as we promote timeless wisdom for the challenges and opportunities of modern life. Note: as a way of saying thanks, we will send you an advance copy of Mike’s new book, How Do You Know? Which will be released in early 2024. It’s not bad, I guess. (Did I mention he was my boss’s boss?)

Closing Prayer: 

“God, we thank you for the inspiration of Jesus. Grant that we will love you with all our hearts, souls, and minds, and love our neighbors as we love ourselves, even our enemy neighbors. And we ask you, God, in these days of emotional tension, when the problems of the world are gigantic in extent and chaotic in detail, to be with us in our going out and our coming in, in our rising up and in our lying down, in our moments of joy and in our moments of sorrow, until the day when there shall be no sunset and no dawn. Amen.” (Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., 1929-1968)

Happy Friday,

Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 1:18ff

Many consider it God’s job to keep their life easy. As a data point, Mary’s life got much harder after God intervened. So did Joseph’s. So did Abraham’s. So did Moses’. So did… well, you get the point.

Second Place: What you think about God is the second most important thing about you.

Caring for Caretakers: One of the things you learn being a pastor is that while Christmas is a time of high-high for some, it is a time of low-low for many. This is a good moment to be extra patient with those around you.

Futurum versus Adventus: Fifty years ago, Jürgen Moltmann made an important distinction between futurum and adventus. The first believes the present is pregnant with the future. The second believes the future will be altered by outside forces. Christianity affirms the second. Our hope rests on the promise that the one who showed up as a helpless baby will return as the All-powerful King.

Clean Up: 1) Last week, I referred to the lead singer of Switchfoot as Jon Ferguson instead of Jon Foreman. Sorry. I knew better. Jon Ferguson is a rock star pastor in Chicago but not an actual rock star rock star. Nor is he the lead singer of Switchfoot. 2) In response to my reference to Emel — my Uber driver with the autistic son — I was sent this song by Ben Rector. It’s pure gold. If I could sing, I would sing this song.

Thought Experiment: Set aside the season’s big issues — e.g., Do the Die Hard films qualify as Christmas movies? — to answer this question: which biblical character would you want to trade places with? Not Job. Or Ruth. Or Peter. Or Paul. Or Isaiah. Or Hosea. Or Mary. Or… well… once again, you see where this is going. You have challenges. But given that you are reading this email, it’s likely you are living a life of extraordinary blessing.

WOTW: The word that is suddenly everywhere is Krampus — a demonic, Gene Simmons-esque, anti-Santa of European origin. The rise of Krampus says something notable — and notably depressing — about this moment. BTW tomorrow is the last day to submit a nominee for WOTY. 

IS2M: 1) Some secular people have started pushing back on the chaos and confusion of the moment by embracing Christ; 2) People’s ability to twist their faith to fit their politics suggests a lot of mental pilates is going on; 3) Jonah is replacing Exodus as the biblical book of the moment; 4) McDonald’s’ new adult Happy Meal is long on calories and short on promised results (i.e., it did not make me happy); 5) We should be paying more attention to Toynbee’s observation that civilizations die not by murder but by suicide; and 6) This four-panel cartoon is one of the more insightful things I’ve stumbled across in quite a while.

Resources: 1) If you make a donation of any amount to Lakelight before Monday, December 18, we will send you my most recent book — How Do You Know — hopefully in time for Christmas; 2) Here is my sermon on Isaiah 11 — in which I implore people to “pick a lane;” 3) On January 1st, I’ll be resuming five-minute daily devotions that you can sign up for here. Most of Q1 will be directed at The Big 10 — an eleven-week series on the Ten Commandments. 

Without Comment: 1) This Gallup/Brookings poll suggests that children raised by conservative parents have better mental health than those raised by liberal parents; 2) This report contends that math scores for 15-year-old Americans are now at an all-time low; 3) The value of the chemicals in your body is around $575. The value of your organs — if they were all successfully harvested and sold — is around $45 million; 4) This WSJ article claims that the single biggest cause of violent crime, drug and alcohol abuse, truancy, unwed pregnancy, suicide, and psychological disorders is fatherlessness; 5) This YouGov/Economist poll shows that eight percent of US college students “strongly agree” that the Holocaust did not happen. An additional 12% “tend to agree.” This Gallup poll shows that 28% of Americans consider themselves Republicans, 24% consider themselves Democrats, and 46% say they are “Independents.” 

Housekeeping: There will be no Friday Update on Dec. 22nd. Glenn Wishnew — the Associate Director of Lakelight — will write the Dec. 29th Update. I will be back on January 5th. Merry Christmas.

So… What is the Most Important Thing About You? Earlier, I stated that our thoughts about God are the second most important thing about us. That was obviously a setup to get you to ask, “What is the most important thing about me?” The answer is… what God thinks about you.

Closing Prayer: I am not worthy, Master and Lord, that you should come beneath the roof of my soul; yet since in your love toward all, you wish to dwell in me, in boldness I come. You command; open the gates, which you alone have made. And you will come in, and enlighten my darkened reasoning. I believe that you will do this; for you did not send away the harlot who came to you with tears, nor cast out the repenting tax-collector, nor reject the thief who acknowledged your kingdom. But you counted all of these as members of your band of friends. You are blessed forevermore. Amen. (John Chrysostom, 347 – 407)

Happy Friday

I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put in a dungeon.

Joseph, Genesis 40:15

It’s worth noting what Joseph does not say. More than a decade after he had been sold into slavery, Joseph — the once and future cup-bearer to the King — did not tell his fellow prisoner that it was his own brothers who’d turned on him. Was he too embarrassed? Too traumatized? Did the wound run so deep that he had yet to fully face it? In both life and Bible study, we do well to make note of what is not being said.

In Praise of Hypocrisy: A few weeks ago, I noted that morality had given way to immorality, which had subsequently slid towards amorality with occasional dalliances of anti-morality. One reader responded in praise of hypocrisy. “Oh, for the days, when people hid their duplicity because they knew it was wrong, instead of celebrating it as some act of courage and self-definition.”

Two Things: I’m still thinking about two things from last week when I attended an event designed “to encourage those working to advance the common good.” The first was seeing Jon Ferguson, the lead singer/songwriter for Switchfoot, helping the hotel staff. (I did not expect a platinum-selling rock star to notice the needs of the hourly employees.) The second was the life of Emel, my Uber driver, who spends most of her days attending to the needs of her severely autistic, 6-year-old son Calvin. Emel — who was driving me home at midnight — moonlights so she and her husband can afford additional care for Calvin. God bless moms (and dads) like Emel.

Two Things About the Two Things: 1) One of the reasons we need strong families is because we cannot find — nor could we afford if we could find them — government employees who will love Calvin like Emel does; 2) If you want to see Jon Ferguson in action, this is Switchfoot’s best-selling song and this is my favorite.

In Case You Missed It: 1) The energy drink Celsius is way cool, and you can impress important people if you drink it, and 2) the word impactful is no longer impactful.

Clean Up: 1) I employ abbreviations (e.g., WOTW, IS2M, etc.) to keep the Update short, to keep you guessing, and to make you feel smart when you crack the code. Last week’s use of NFP was an exception. In my world, NFP means Not For Profit. I mean, duh. Isn’t that OBVIOUS? And what else could it mean? My apologies to those of you for whom it means Natural Family Planning, Not for Publication, No Flash Photography, or Non-Flying Pilot. 2) Several wrote to thank me for forwarding EV Hill’s eulogy for his wife. It’s not too late for you to listen to it. Part one is here, and part two is here.

FWIW: Ayaan Hirsi Ali — a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institute and a former senior fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School — recently joined the growing number of public intellectuals announcing their allegiance to Christ. As you might expect, I’m thrilled. However, as this piece articulates, Ali and others like her seem to be endorsing Jesus as a way of advocating Western liberalism over Nihilism and radical Islam more than embracing him in a more traditional manner — i.e., as Savior and Lord. I may be wrong, or Ali may grow in her awareness of why we should follow Jesus. I simply raise it because it seems to be a growing trend.

Reindeer Tribe: Brad Coleman (who is frequently confused for Jon Ferguson at the Highland Park campus) recently joined his Reindeer Tribe friends (all of whom drink Celsius) to record new Christmas music. This year’s songs are not yet out, but here is a video from last year, and here and here are links to two songs Ferguson — I mean Coleman — wrote. 

Without Comment: 1) The wealthier a man is, the more likely he is to be married and have children. Meanwhile, the wealthier a woman is, the less likely she is to be married or be a mother; 2) The biggest predictor of the educational attainment of children is the educational attainment of their parents; 3) After two years of decline, US life expectancy climbed from 76.4 in 2021 to 77.5; 4) According to the CDC, a record high49,449 people died by suicide in the US last year. The spike was most pronounced among older Americans;5)According to this report,Home Alone now edges out both A Christmas Story and A Charlie Brown Christmas as the most rewatched Christmas classic; 6)Kraft now offers a vegan mac & cheese, which I think means their new mac and cheese has no cheese; 7) The median age of home buyers has climbed from 31 in ‘81 to 53 in ’23; 8) Business Insider notes that a Cheesecake Factory is a sign of a mall’s financial health — i.e., where you find “The Factory,” you find a strong bottom line. (Note: This may be the only place where The Cheesecake Factory and health are used in the same sentence.); and 9) According to the Yale Daily News, 78.9% of grades given to Yale students in the 2022-23 school year were an A or A-.

HDYK:  My book How Do You Know — which explores how to navigate competing truth claims of our day — will be officially released in January; however, copies are immediately available to anyone who makes a year-end gift to Lakelight Institute. (Lakelight is the 501C3 that Christ Church founded to bring timeless wisdom to the challenges of modern life.) To make a donation and receive my book, click here. Please note: 1) Orders received by Dec 13th will arrive in time for Christmas; 2) Lakelight is providing a gift copy to anyone who attends a Christ Church service this weekend.

WOTW: Honorable mention goes to orthosomnia (the “obsessive pursuit of optimal sleep metrics”) and Malibu Marxist (a term applied to wealthy elites who advocate communism — i.e., most US econ professors). Full honors go to budget dust, an inside-the-beltway term used to refer to small amounts of money — i.e., around one hundred billion. Reminder: December 16th is the deadline for WOTY nominations. (Note: the dictionaries have mostly weighed in: Webster’s selected authentic, Cambridge hallucination, and Oxford rizz.)

Closing Prayer: Grant Lord, we ask you, that we may learn to have our hopes and fears, our joys and sorrows, all grounded on your holy Word, that we may learn to love what you love and hate what you hate. Amen. (William Wilberforce, 1780 – 1825)

Happy Friday,

I try to please everyone in everything I do.

Paul, I Corinthians 10:33

In these confusing and contentious times, the path forward is often both elusive and challenging — i.e., simple solutions seldom are. (If a plan is simple, it’s not a solution. And if it’s a solution, it’s not simple.) That said, Paul provides some handles: when facing a choice between pleasing God and pleasing others, please God. When facing a choice between pleasing others and pleasing ourselves, please others.

A Good Week: I spent the last two days attending an event designed to encourage NFP leaders. It worked. I showed up weary and left buoyed. Yes, the world is still a mess. Yes, our politics remain broken. Yes, way too many people are angry and anxious. (And if the next Lincoln/Mandela/Churchill is out there, I’ve yet to meet him or her.) But take heart. There are lots of thoughtful and faithful people working to make things better, including a number of younger leaders who are hungry, humble, and smart. And most of all, God is bigger than the challenges we face. Indeed, many of the challenges we face can be recast as opportunities to reflect the love and grace of Christ.

Quote Worth Requoting: “The way we understand human life depends on what conception we have of the human story. What is the real story of which my life story is part?” Lesslie Newbigin

It’s Official: Last week, I turned on the Vikings/Broncos game just in time to hear Mike Tirico introduce “the Sunday Night Anthem.” He was referring to Carrie Underwood’s “Waiting All Day for Sunday Night” — for which she reportedly makes one million dollars per week. I think Tirico just made it official. If we are going to refer to Underwood’s rehash of a Joan Jett song as an “anthem,” there is no reason to object to the claim that the largest worship services are held at churches named after fields — i.e., Soldier, Lambeau, etc.

Two More Football Comments: 1) Just like many other large churches, the NFL needs to get more people involved. Right now, they have tens of thousands of people desperately in need of exercise, watching a handful of people desperately in need of rest. 2) My wife is right. It’s no longer amazing how young the players look. What’s amazing is how young the coaches are.

IS2M: 1) If it’s true that we can measure the health of a society by how it channels and stewards the passions of its young men, we are in more trouble than we realize; 2) Yuval Levin is right to suggest that one of the reasons trust in institutions is down is because they are trying to do too much. We need schools, government agencies, corporations, the press, etc., to stay in their lane; 3) We can divide the news into two sections: reports suggesting that we are leaving our children a really messed up world and reports suggesting that we are leaving the world our really messed up children; 4) The next time we hear about hot professions, PTSD studies and cybersecurity will be close to the top; and 5) We might have predicted that the children who were parented by people reading The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People would end up reading The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.

WOTW: Given the recent election of candidates the WSJ calls “far-right,” I thought about going with anarcho-capitalism. But given the confusion of the season, I’m going with Advent. FWIW, advent — which means “arrival” or “an appearing or coming into place” — is the four Sundays leading up to a commemoration of Christ’s first coming and an anticipation of His return and is supposed to be a somber, reflective time. Furthermore, even though Christmas trees show up at Costco in September and Christmas music starts playing on the radio on November 1st, Christmas does not officially begin until Christmas Eve and then continues for 12 days. (If you’d like to download an Advent that my friend Paul wrote, you can access it here.)

2 WOTW Adjacents: 1) Last week, I gave honorable mention to mental fog but failed to note the possible link between its spike and the growing number of states legalizing recreational marijuana; 2) You have until December 16 to submit WOTY nominations. The winner will be announced by Warren Buffet, Taylor Swift, Patrick Mahomes, and António Guterres at the annual Friday Update New Year’s Eve Gala (sorry, it’s already sold out again). BTW, SBF now sends his regrets.

Without Comment: 1) According to this USA Today study, 65% of 22- to 40-year-olds receive financial aid from their parents. The average amount is $718/month; 2) Frustrated by the work habits of real models, a Spanish agency created an AI-generated model. Aitana Lopez — who now has 128K Instagram followers and makes over $10K per month — apparently never cops an attitude; 3) According to this Deloitte survey, GenZers are more likely to fall prey to phishing, identity theft, romance scams, and cyberbullying than their parents; 4) Speaking of Zers — who are currently b/w 11 and 27 years of age — the average one living in the US receives 237 notifications a day, with some getting as many as 5,000; and 5) There are over 400M guns in the US, with US citizens buying 60M guns during COVID.

Resources: During the 90s, the college ministry I was involved with regularly sent 50-60 students to South Central Los Angles to work through the ministries of the Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church. Their pastor — the late Dr. E.V. Hill — was a gifted leader and preacher. Every few years, I relisten to the sermon he preached at his wife’s funeral. It’s hard to describe — and harder to forget. You can access part one here and part two here.

Closing Prayer:  Let your love so warm our souls, O Lord, that we may gladly surrender ourselves with all we are and have unto you. Let your love fall as fire from heaven upon the altar of our hearts; teach us to guard it heedfully by continual devotion and quietness of mind, and to cherish with anxious care every spark of its holy flame, with which your good Spirit would quicken us, so that neither height, nor depth, things present, nor things to come, may ever separate us therefrom. Strengthen our souls, animate our cold hearts with your warmth and tenderness, that we may no more live as in a dream, but walk before you as pilgrims in earnest to reach their home. And grant us all at last to meet with your holy saints before your throne, and there rejoice in your love. Amen. (Gerhard Tersteegen, 1697 – 1769)

Happy Friday,

The Lord called to the man, “Where are you?”

Genesis 3:9

For several months now, asking, “What time is it?” has been the stylish way to suggest someone needed to wake up to what was going on in the world. Let the record show God asked a form of the question first. His Genesis 3 inquiry of Adam was less a question than it was a suggestion that Adam wake up to his new reality. BTW, the proper response to God’s question — given later by Abraham and still later by Moses and the prophets — is “Here I am.” So, “What time is it in your world?” And, “Where are you?”

The Thanksgiving Challenge: A friend surprised me by calling to say he was thankful for my friendship. He later explained that he was participating in The Thanksgiving Challenge (TTC). What is TTC? Those participating go out of their way to thank someone for something and then report on that exchange as dessert is being served on T-Day. This sounds like a tradition that should spread. Expect to be reminded of TTC early next November.

Quotes Worth Requoting: 1) “Advent tells us to look directly into the darkness and name it for what it is. … The upper lights are burning. We cannot see them with our earthly human retinas, but we can see them in faith and in hope. The unseen power of the heavens is overhead. Our part is to keep the lower lights burning.” Fleming Rutledge; 2) “The Christian is known by two great marks: his inner warfare and his inner peace.” J.C. Ryle; and 3) “The problem is not the problem — it never is — the problem is being ‘too busy’ or ‘too confused’ to sit down and think about the problem. There are only two types of problems that will kill you: the ones you don’t see coming and the ones you don’t fix fast enough once you see them.” The Wealthy Consultant.

WOTW: Honorable mentions go to 1) whopperjawed (also wapper-jawed, whocker-jawed, and womper-jawed), which refers to “things that are crooked, out of place, damaged or broken;” 2) limbic capitalism, the practice of advancing “socially regressive products” — e.g., vaping, marijuana, alcohol, Youtube, TikTok, Xbox (and other ‘electronic opiates’) — that “leverage excessive consumption and addiction by targeting the part of the brain responsible for feelings and quick reactions as distinct from dispassionate thinking — i.e., the limbic system;” and 3) cognitive fog. (Note: I blame my cognitive fog less on limbic capitalism than I do on all the things that are womper-jawed.) Full WOTW honors go to GRATITUDE — which I predictably chose so I could remind you that being thankful is more of a skill than it is a disposition and encourage you to practice gratitude more than one day a year. By the way, I am now receiving nominations for Word of The Year.

Without Comment: 1) According to these charts — here and here — (APPENDIX #1 & #2), a smaller percentage of adult men are fully employed than at any time in American history; 2) According to this report, only 6 percent of Americans were in poverty in 2022, down from 33.8 percent in 1980; 3) Gen Z Christians are less partisan than other generations and not excited about voting for the first time in 2024; 4) According to Gallup, the average American weights 20 lbs more than in 1990.

FWIW: 1) Elite schools should no longer be called “elite” just “expensive;” 2) I appreciated this joke from RR; 3) Among this week’s entries for “signs that the apocalypse is upon us,” this WSJ article stands out; 4) Speaking of The WSJ, on Wednesday they ran the same editorial they have run every Wednesday before T-Day since 1961; and 5) If the Bible doesn’t occasionally surprise and scandalize you, you’re probably using it as a mirror for your own values.

Clean Up: 1) Last week, I referenced Matthew 5 for the Lord’s Prayer when I should have cited Matthew 6; 2) While a number of you appreciated the aerial photograph of the Korean peninsula, more wrote to challenge my identification of North Korea as a communist country. Fair enough. North Korea is more of a feudal, dictatorial family cult than what Marx and Engels advocated. That said, North and South Korea do offer a contrast between free market and centralized control.

Resources: Click here for a sermon where I advocate you take a long walk.

In Case You are Wondering: When asked what my favorite book of the Bible is, I answer the same way most pastors do — i.e., I name whatever book I am studying at the moment.

Partly Personal: 1) According to this WSJ piece, one percent of Americans are named Mike; 2) History was made last Saturday night. While paying for tickets to a dance recital for Alats — a ministry started by a couple in our small group — I was asked if I qualified for the senior discount. Before I could instinctively say no, Sheri asked at what age the senior discount kicked in. The person taking money said, “Oh, I don’t know. Anything above fifty.” So, I have now received my first senior discount. FWIW, I am now 63, and I can attest that life goes by quickly. It seems like just yesterday I was watching the mail for my “blue slip” so I could go get my driver’s license. Remember: Life is short. Eternity is not. The opportunity to make a difference is now. 

Closing Prayer: O Lord God, Never leave me nor forsake me, but have mercy upon me for your great name’s sake. And not for myself alone do I ask these blessings, but for all the poor and needy, all widows and fatherless children, and for the stranger in distress; and may they call upon you in such manner as to be convinced that you are a prayer-hearer and prayer-answering God; and yours shall be the praise, forever. Amen (Maria W. Stewart, 1803 – 1879)

Happy Friday,

Our Father who art in Heaven…
Jesus, The Lord’s Prayer

Matthew 5

Much has been made of Jesus teaching his disciples to call God “Father.” Though the Jews recognized the Lord of Heaven as “the Father of the Nation of Israel,” no one called him Dad. Christ’s suggestion that they do so was not just cheeky; it was scandalous and heretical. But there is more going on here than that. Jesus did not say, “This then is how you should pray, My Father who art in Heaven… give me this day my bread.” The word was not “My” but “Our.” Our! Our! Our! In a society that celebrates zealous self-sufficiency and hyper-autonomy, we must not forget this. We are in this together. We are a communion of saints — a family — and we must never act or think otherwise.

A 60^th Anniversary: Next Wednesday — November 22, 2023 — will mark the sixtieth anniversary of the deaths of John F. Kennedy, C.S. Lewis, and Aldous Huxley. If you can find a copy of Peter Kreeft’s Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death, in which he imagines the three debating the merits of humanism, theism, and mysticism as they wait to find out what comes next, I recommend you read it. (BTW, if this literary format inspires you, I’m still waiting for someone to write a book leveraging the fact that Mother Teresa and Princess Diana both died in the same week.)

Looking Past T-Day: One of my goals this year is to rescue Christmas from itself. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I know it includes less hurry and more Jesus. I invite you to join me in that pursuit. 

Without Comment: 1)Moody downgraded the US’s credit outlook to negative, citing political polarization and the deficit; 2) Wendy’s is redesigning its restaurants to have smaller dining rooms and separate drive-thru windows for delivery drivers (Grubhub, Doordash, etc.); 3) Israel is the only Western country that has a birth rate above replacement; 4) The WAPO did a big piece on the explosive growth of homeschooling, noting that it continues to grow after COVID; 5) This piece claims that our heightened awareness about the importance of sleep is causing some people to lose sleep; 6) This survey of 8,000 people across 16 countries — including the US, Mexico, and India — shows that 56% of people get most of their news from social media.

WOTW: Honorable mention goes to revangelical (those who return to faith after an earlier deconstruction of the same), polysubstance (a description of those oppressed by multiple addictions), and Ignatian indifference (the idea “of being detached enough from things and experiences to be able to take them or to leave them depending on whether they help us ‘praise, reverence, and serve God’”). Full honors go to news desert, the name for the one-fifth of the US operating without access to local news due to the collapse of over 2,000 local newspapers.

1,000 Words: 1)Click here to see a chart showing the correlation between attending religious services and depression, mortality, and divorce; 2) Click here to see a single-picture argument for capitalism over communism; and 3) Click here to see a chart displaying our declining happiness.

IS2M: 1) Anticipation is as good a single-word definition of leadership as I have heard; 2) Though we’ve failed to be moral since Genesis 3, it seems that our aspirational objectives have been declining. The slide has moved from morality → immorality → amorality → anti-morality.

Not for Me: I recently tried to read Kevin Kelly’s The Silver Cord, a nearly 500-page graphic novel about angels who download their “essence” into AI-enhanced robots. It was clever — and there were some moments of significant theological insight — but after 300 pages, I waved the white flag. I’m apparently not a graphic novel guy. Who knew?

Lord of the Flies: I recently had a chance to ask a Harvard professor about the mood on campus. After noting the 10,000 percent increase in “middle administrators” and “the drift from ‘a society of inquiry to a society of activism,’” he referenced The Lord of the Flies. He also said that while he wasn’t optimistic that it would turn around, he would not have been optimistic in the 60s either.

A Classic: In Mere Christianity, Lewis writes: “Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage; but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

WISHKBDN: Words I Should Have Known But Did Not will not regularly stand alongside Word of the Week (WOTW) or It Seems to Me (IS2M), but I’ve started fielding emails that begin, “I’m embarrassed to say this, but until recently I did not know what XYZ meant. Recent entries include pogrom and Steel Man. FWIW, until just recently, I thought those who were talking about kah-tar and those talking aboutCutter were talking about two different countries.

An Explanation: If my single-picture argument for capitalism left you guessing, the picture is an aerial view of the Korean peninsula. It shows the lights that are on in the South compared with the darkness of the North.

Resources: Click here to listen to last week’s sermon on Exodus 17:1-7, a remarkably important and powerful passage that shows Jesus at work in the Old Testament.

Closing Prayer: O Lord God, in whom we live and move and have our being, open our eyes that we may behold your fatherly presence ever about us. Draw our hearts to you with the power of love. Teach us in nothing to be anxious; and when we have done what you have given us to do, help us, O God our Savior, to leave the issue to your wisdom. Take from us all doubt and mistrust. Lift our thoughts up to you, and make us know that all things are possible to us, in and through your Son our redeemer, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.(Brooke Foss Westcott, 1825 – 1901)

Happy Friday,

God has led me into darkness, shutting out all light.
He has turned his hand against me again and again, all day long.

The Prophet Jeremiah
Lamentations 3:2-3

In a world riddled with war, injustice, infertility, sick children, unfaithful friends, fading health — and ten thousand other maladies — God knows that much of our life will be lived in a minor key. His loving response not only includes allowing us to vent our anger toward him, but He gives us the words to do so. Use the Psalms — or the Book of Lamentations — to process the grief that chokes your heart. They are a way forward.

Worth 1000 Words: This picture is a metaphor for many things, perhaps principally what God sees when he looks down on us. It is not for nothing that the Bible refers to us as sheep —not panthers, lions, cougars, eagles, or anything else with the strength and intelligence to care for themselves.

FWIW: 1) At the moment, those talking to me about end-of-the-world scenarios are citing geopolitical pundits, not Daniel or Revelation; 2) I’m officially bowing out of the Dan Fogelberg love fest I unintentionally started a few weeks ago. Those who need an immediate fix can click here or here. I suggest you join the local chapter of the Dan Fogelberg Fan Club; 3) When asked what “being old” means, the most popular answer is “turning 85.” Given that the average life expectancy in the US is 79, most Americans die six years before they grow old.

Without Comment: 1) According to Teens and Screens, over half of 10- to 24-year-olds want TV shows featuring less sex and more friendship; 2) According to Pew, church growth in China has stalled; 3) According to US News & World Report, the most popular dog names in the US are: Bella, Luna, Max, Daisy, Charlie, Coco, Buddy, Lucy, Milo, and Bailey; 4) According to The NYT, trust in science dropped 17% in the last four years; and 5) USA Today recently hired a reporter whose only assignment is to report on Taylor Swift.

Not as Chilling:  Few can rival Bill Maher’s memorably damning comments about smartphones — “The tycoons of social media have to stop pretending they’re friendly nerd gods building a better world and admit they’re just tobacco farmers in T-shirts selling an addictive product to children. Phillip Morris just wanted your lungs; the App Store wants your soul.” The new go-to line is to suggest that we will soon equate allowing a child to have a smartphone with allowing them to smoke.

WOTW: Honorable mention goes to Captain Courage (the street name for the meth-like stimulant found in the bodies of some of the Hamas terrorists involved in the Oct. 7th attack on Israel), post-law (a somewhat predictable cousin of post-truth), and mammoni (single adult men still dependent on their mothers). Full honors go to sleep divorce – the growing trend of married couples to sleep in separate rooms.

IS2M: 1) Samuel Huntington — the Harvard professor who wrote The Clash of Civilizations — should be getting more ink for predicting that conflicts would be more about cultural interests than national ones and that the main clash would be between fundamentalist Islam and the West; 2) One of the reasons humility is so rare in political discourse today is because political belief and belonging now constitute many people’s core identity.

In Case You Missed It: 1) The “All In” podcast has announced that TED is dead; 2) The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expressions — FIRE — has replaced the ACLU as the go-to group protecting unpopular speech; 3) Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s legendary report — “Defining Deviancy Down” — turned thirty this month; and 4) Jesus did not say, “your truth shall set you free;” he said, “you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.”

Trust: Click here to listen to a discussion I hosted at our first Lakelight Good Work Summit. It featured Dr. David Miller (Director of Princeton Faith and Work Initiative), Mike Zafirovski (former President of Motorola), and Tom Tropp (Chief Ethics Officer at Gallagher). The topic is restoring trust.

Closing Prayer: As I rise from sleep I thank You, O Holy Trinity, for through Your great goodness and patience You were not angered with me, an idler and sinner. You have not destroyed me in my sins, but have shown Your usual love for men, and when I was prostrate in despair, You raised me to keep the morning watch and glorify in Your power. Now enlighten my mind’s eye and open my mouth that I might study Your words, understand Your commandments and sing to You in heartfelt adoration. I praise Your Most Holy Name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, now and ever. Amen. (St Basil the Great, 330 – 379) (lightly edited)

Happy Friday,

Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?

Isaac, Gen. 22:7

Genesis 22 is a scandalous read. What kind of God asks a father to sacrifice his only son? Can you imagine Abraham’s anguish when Isaac asks, “Dad, we’ve got the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb?” It is not until a thousand pages later that we realize we’ve been set up: It was not Abraham who would be sacrificing a son. It was God himself. May our hearts be changed by God’s display of care for us. He is the one who provides the lamb.

Halloween: I’ve been hearing that Halloween – on which Americans recently spent north of $12B – has become the third largest US holiday. I’m not sure if this is true, but as these WSJ articles (here and here) note, the holiday is growing bigger and darker every year. I’m tempted to say something snarky about how few people even remember that October 31st is Reformation Day, but I’d have to first lament that few know what the Reformation is. (BTW, in case you are wondering, I dressed up like a curmudgeon again this year.)

Ordering Our Fears: When I was growing up, our top fears were supposedly public speaking, death, and snakes. If that was true then, it’s not true now. According to Chapman University’s annual fear survey, we now fear: 

I share this less because our fears say something about us but because they shape our hearts. (Stephen King noted, “We make up imaginary horrors to help us deal with real ones.” The Bible says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”)

Perspective: The chaos of the moment has led some to ask, “Do I think Christ is about to return?” My response – which has been frequently rehearsed over my 35 years as a pastor – is: 1) I have great confidence in – and take much comfort from – Christ’s promised return. It will happen! 2) In spite of the fact that Jesus said, “no one knows the hour,” for the last 2,000 years, someone has always claimed to know the hour. Ignore them. 3) If you are faithfully following Jesus today, his timing need not be a concern.

While We Are On The Topic: This 1980 quote from Malcomb Muggeridge – the British author, public intellectual, media giant, and general wit who came to faith late in life – is worth reflecting on. “Let us then… rejoice that we see around us at every hand the decay of the institutions and instruments of power, see intimations of empires [fading], money in total disarray, dictators and parliamentarians alike nonplussed by the confusion and conflicts which encompass them. For it is precisely when every earthly hope has been explored and found wanting… when every recourse this world offers, moral as well as material has been explored to no effect, when in the shivering cold the last [stick of wood] has been thrown on the fire and in the gathering darkness every glimmer of light has finally flickered out, it is then that Christ’s hand reaches out, sure and firm. Then Christ’s words bring their inexpressible comfort, then His light shines brightest, abolishing the darkness forever. So, finding in everything only deception and nothingness, the soul is constrained to [turn] to God himself and to rest content with Him.” Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of Christendom

DF: Apparently, there are more Dan Fogelberg fans out there than I realized. For those writing to say thank you for my reference to him in last week’s Update, here is a soundtrack for you to enjoy.

WOTW: Honorable mention goes to adaptive lag (coined back in the 1970s by Alvin Toffler), settler colonialism (which is showing up everywhere this week), hypocrisy projection (obvious enough), and philanthro-journalism (coined in light of the failed local newspapers being resurrected as not-for-profit organizations). I am selecting infodemic because we are living in one.

Without Comment: 1) The WSJ puts the increase of anti-Semitic attacks in the US at 400%; 2) Nearly 70 percent of Americans watch live sports, with 22 of the 30 most popular TV shows of all time being Super Bowls; 3) Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts will be replacing pumpkin spice with peppermint and gingerbread. They will also start wishing everyone a happy “holiday;” 4) The share of older Americans with debt has nearly doubled in the last 30 years; 5) According to NPR, Americans spent $700M on pet costumes this Halloween; and 6) According to Gallup, teachers are more burned out than any other profession.

Resources: Click here to listen to last week’s sermon on Exodus 12 — a text that sets up the Grand Story as well as any I have found. (Be warned, in the sermon, I demand that you pick from among the competing narratives of this moment.)

Closing Prayer: Be kind to your little children, Lord. Be a gentle teacher, patient with our weakness and stupidity. And give us the strength and discernment to do what you tell us, and so grow in your likeness. May we all live in the peace that comes from you. May we journey towards your city, sailing through the waters of sin untouched by the waves, borne serenely along by the Holy Spirit. Night and day may we give you praise and thanks, because you have shown us that all things belong to you, and all blessings are gifts from you. To you, the essence of wisdom, the foundation of truth, be glory for evermore. Amen. (Clement of Alexandria, c.150–c.215)

Happy Friday:

Do your best to come to me soon. For Demas, in love with this present
world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.

Paul, 2 Tim. 4:9

We should be saddened but not surprised when people walk away from the faith. “Deconstruction” has been happening since the earliest days for a variety of reasons, starting with the church’s failings. The right approach is: 1) love those who are rethinking life; 2) remind them to not only doubt their faith but to doubt their doubts; and 3) press ever deeper ourselves. Life gets better with more — not less — Christianity.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Utopia: Former CIA Director David Petraeus and former US Defense Secretary Bob Gates are among those suggesting that the world is as unstable now as at any point since the end of WWII. The five threats that have their attention are:

1. The war in the Middle East.
2. China and Russia’s growing collaboration.
3. A malicious Iran.
4. An unhinged North Korea.
5. The massive spread of doctored or wholly fake videos being used to manipulate world news and opinion.

This might be a good time to remind ourselves that 100 years ago, we were promised that with just a bit more time and a few more technological advances, we’d fix all our problems and live in a Utopian paradise. A funny thing happened on the way to paradise — human nature got in the way.

Number Six: My ongoing dive into the news media has helped me see that its present woes are largely the result of disruptive shifts occurring in tech, the market, our epistemological framework, culture, politics, and our declining density. All six are significant, but the last one gets the least ink, so I’ll have more to say about it in the weeks ahead. (BTW, two of the Lakelight Live News Rules talks remain. To sign up for Lake Forest – Oct. 29th – or Naples – Nov. 2 – click on the city.)

The Book of the Dun Cow:  I just reread WalterWangerin’s 1978 fantasy classic, The Book of the Dun Cow, in which Wangerin manages to merge Animal Farm, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Canterbury Tales into a fun, compelling and convicting read. Chanticleer — the protagonist (who also happens to be a rooster) — is a flawed character, but he does the right thing in a way we can all learn from. Do yourself a favor and read this book.

This Week’s Flash Mob: I enjoyed binging on the dozen flash mob videos you sent in this week. This one was my favorite. (I’ve also been replaying this worship video.)

Without Comment: 1) US household wealth grew by 37% between 2019 and 2022, the largest increase on record; 2) Nearly 2/3 of US CEOs expect employees will be back in offices full-time three years from now; 3) Divorce seldom makes people happier; furthermore, 93% of those who stay in an unhappy marriage are happier in the marriage ten years later; 4) This CNN poll suggests that while 81% of those 65+ favor Israel’s military response to Hamas, only 27% of those 18-34 do; 5) This annual poll shows that trust in both traditional news sources (the Washington Post, New York Times, NPR, CBS News, etc.) and alternate ones (the New York Post, Washington Times, Daily Caller, RealClearPolitics, etc.) is at an all-time low; 6) It’s now 52% more expensive to buy a home than to rent; 7) and 12% of Americans account for 50% of U.S. beef consumption.

IS2M: 1) Both the scientific and the secular communities are speaking more openly about the downside of porn; 2) Whatever their virus resistance status may be, many people lack their pre-COVID social stamina and resilience; 3) Those who argue that it is wrong to judge a culture need to be more honest and state that what they really mean is that it’s wrong to judge cultures other than the West; 4) Those who suggest that faithful obedience to Christ is “not sustainable” are saying the same thing to me that Satan says; and 5) The statements made by college presidents concerning the Middle East highlight both the moral confusion of much of higher ed and the profound complexity of the Middle East.

The End of October: This seems an appropriate moment to rehearse the opening lines of Dan Fogelberg’s 1975 song, Old Tennessee:  The End of October, the sleepy brown woods seem to nod down their heads to the winter. / Yellows and grays paint the sad skies today, and I wonder when you’re coming home. / Woke up one morning, the wind through the window reminded me winter is just ’round the bend. Somehow, I just did not see it was coming —it took me by surprise again.

WOTW: It was a big week for words. I’m giving honorable mention to coffee badging (the act of satisfying a return-to-work mandate by making a brief appearance in the office, coffee in hand), seppuku (Japanese for self-disembowelment, which has been on display on the political right this month); cyborg theocracy, which describes the new imperative to “seed the body with tech in order to move beyond human limits,” and decoloniality, which I’m recognizing only to remind you that academics love to make up inane words that no one else cares about. Full honors go to the Great Forgetting, Western Civ’s decision to ignore all lessons from its past.

Closing Prayer: Grant, O Lord, that your love may so fill our lives that we may count nothing too small to do for you, nothing too much to give, and nothing too hard to bear, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen. Ignatius Loyola, (1491–1556)

Happy Friday,

We are saved by grace through faith, not of ourselves; it is a gift of God.

Paul, Eph. 2 

The suggestion that God knows the worst about us and yet loves us anyway is not just counter-intuitive; it conflicts with our deep need for self-justification. We want to save ourselves. Legalism is our native tongue. Consequently, it is not enough to accept the doctrine of justification by faith alone. We must drive it deep into our hearts. This work is never done.

Absorb Pain: Make it your goal today to absorb someone else’s pain. After they act inappropriately — e.g., cut you off, misrepresent your views, say something unkind, leave you to clean up a mess, etc. — surprise them with your gracious response. Let me go so far as to suggest that you model your treatment of them on Christ’s treatment of you. I think this will not only help them and bring you some joy, but it may help save society. We are descending into an “eye for an eye” world where everyone ends up blind. Someone needs to stop the trendline; it might as well be us.

WOTW: Given world events, I am dismissing athleisure as being too trite (Lululemon is one of the big names in athleisureapparel). I’m also dismissing keyboard radicals because I don’t want to encourage those self-important windbags who think they’re changing the world by writing a weekly newsletter.My selection for WOTW is moral injury. I chose it from among a number of Middle East adjacent nominations, i.e., just war theory, Armageddon, and doom loop.

Planning Ahead:Now is a good time to start thinking about your guesses for 2023 Word of the Year and Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. To prime the pump, here are past nominees: in 2015, Merriam Webster picked Isis, and Time picked Angela Merkel. In 2016, OED gave us post-truth, and Time gave us Donald Trump. In 2017, we got Youthquake and The Silence Breakers. In 2018, it was misinformation and the Guardians (journalists risking persecution and violence). In 2019, it was the pronoun they and Greta Thunberg. In 2020, we got Pandemic and Joe Bidden/Kamala Harris. In 2021, it was vaccine and Elon Musk. And in 2022, it was gaslighting and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Nominations will open in November.

Accepting Limits: One of the aspects of Jesus I have long underappreciated is his gracious acceptance of limits, starting with the incarnation itself. 

FWIW: Thirty years ago, I heard an “old preacher” — at least at the time I thought he was old; he was probably in his early 60s — say that when he was young, he spent all his time preparing the message, but the older he got, the more time he spent preparing the messenger. I find myself marveling at the wisdom of that more and more.

Without Comment: 1) According to this study, a 50-year-old founder is twice as likely to start a successful company as a 30-year-old, and a 60-year-old is three times more likely to start a successful company as a 30-year-old; 2) 74% of US households consist of at least one member who plays video games, with the average age of a US gamer being 31 years; 3) The boost in happiness from attending one worship service per week— compared with not attending — is equivalent to moving from the bottom income quartile to the top income quartile.    

Quote Worth Requoting: “The scientific world in general, and the disciplines of behavioral health in particular, tend to be biased against matters of spirituality and religion. The existing literature is enough to show that these factors have large protective effects against suicide. If another variable had even half the value for any major public health concern, I suspect it would receive substantially more attention.” David H. Rosmarin, Professor, Harvard Medical School

Flash Mobs: It’s the time of year that flash mobs make an appearance. Here are two of my favorites: the Hallelujah Chorus and Every Praise is to Our God. Do yourself the favor of watching these. You can thank me later. (BTW, if you run across a new one that you like, please send it my way.)

Resources: 

• Click here for my wide-ranging discussion with R.R. Reno, the editor of First Things. (Among other things, we discuss the trajectory of the West and ways to live faithfully at this moment). 
• Click here for my sermon on Exodus 7, which marvels at both the Plagues and the timeless nature of God’s Word, 
• Join me at one of the two remaining Lakelight Live events on the news: How and Why the News is Changing: How it is Changing You and What to Do About it. Click on the city to register for Sunday, Oct 29, in Lake Forest, IL, or Thursday, Nov 2, in Naples, FL.

Closing Prayer: Be kind to your little children, Lord. Be a gentle teacher, patient with our weakness and stupidity. And give us the strength and discernment to do what you tell us, and so grow in your likeness. May we all live in the peace that comes from you. May we journey towards your city, sailing through the waters of sin untouched by the waves, borne serenely along by the Holy Spirit. Night and day may we give you praise and thanks, because you have shown us that all things belong to you, and all blessings are gifts from you. To you, the essence of wisdom, the foundation of truth, be glory for evermore. Amen. (Clement of Alexandria, c.150–c.215)