Yes, interesting. But Chat GPT put out a long analysis. Did you type in long paragraphs about the subject before getting the analysis, or what did you do? By the way, I tried Claude after someone here said i did good things. It does.
I had an acquaintance who described himself as a seeker. Like most self proclaimed seekers he was nothing of the kind. He was a close minded dogmatic Richard Dawkins type who thought he was a very open minded type. There is a sense in which being open minded and a seeker can be good. But it has to have some end point because you wind up less open minded than empty headed and if you seek and never find you’re just acting out Sisyphus. You’re something of a shadow person. Also it’s worth pointing out , the pose of seeker is fashionable and validated in our society. I “ love” these books or movies where someone “ seeks”. It’s probably going to be Julia Roberts eating entire pizzas and finding love in Bali. ( She could never have stayed so thin with all that pizza). As a shallow fashionable pose , it’s tedious and trivializing.
I always think "Eat, Pray, Love" would have been more interesting -- just in terms of the narrative, leaving my religious preference aside -- with the eating in India, and the praying in Italy.
Indian food is more interesting than Italian
The praying in Italy would have involved joining an actual congregation, and mingling with the locals. She might have even found love there too, and not needed to go on to Bali! I'm not really making a statement of preference for Catholicism over Hinduism here, even, just a cultural one; her time in the ashram didn't involve as-it-is-lived Hinduism, or much interaction with actual Hindus, and she mainly associated with other affluent Americans.
I’m glad you caught the Eat, Love , Pray reference. The author of the book lived not too far from where I am for years . Anyway ELP - the movie- is laughably dumb.
I bet I know how Woody Allen got McLuhan to do that cameo. He was a big pal of Buckley's (he appeared on one of his television comedy specials) who was also friends with Hugh Kenner, the great teacher and critic who correctly assessed the specific gravity of Pound's place in the great modernist revolution. I bet Allen called Buckley, who called Kenner, who called McLuhan. It was McLuhan, btw, who drove with Kenner down to D.C. to visit Pound for the first time at St. Elizabeth's.
OT: Because of association, once this may have been sufficient to sink the entire Harris/Walz campaign. It may still do some damage. Understand the nature of your enemies, they are not like you.
The dog who found 2 bones always makes me think of this video by Devo. It's fun, so 1980, and true and features great Aliens and leisure suits! Mark Mothersbaugh has made a fortune since those times doing soundtracks for kids programming and movies. His soundtrack for the movie "Rushmore", is a great compilation of British Invasion songs, and is a favorite of mine.
I used to love Devo in high school, though it was several years after their peak popularity time. I still have a bunch of their records at my house, which my husband has been forced to lug from place to place for around a quarter-century now. I listened to them in the car just this morning.
Excellent, one of my favorite bands of all time. Finally saw them in concert for the first time in 2010, when their "Something For Everybody" tour took them to Atlanta. Being based at Ft. Benning at the time, prepping to be a Drill Sergeant, I was close enough to drive there.
Still am a huge fan. Two years ago, I got to attend DEVOtional for the first time, a fan gathering of the DEVOted, and bands that play music inspired by the same. I got to meet the indie band, Fantastic Plastics. Tyson and Miranda, and Chicken Burger Disco (he programs the rhythm tracks in their drum machines and produces their videos.) Here they are, with a barn burner version of DEVO's Gates of Steel.
It's vaguely making me think of that John Carpenter film *They Live*. You know, the one where you put on the glasses and then you can instantly decode all the ideological messages and see the reptilians.
I remember watching a show about a family from California who were dropped into a rural patch of land and had to live like a settler. Built their cabin and animal pens, planted a garden, etc. The son about 12 left his video games and smart phones behind and he and his dog roamed the land. They hunted, gathered, cooked and were healthier, stronger, more fulfilled. Fascinating show. After it was over they returned to life in modern society and were all thoroughly miserable. The son yearned for the woods and freedom. They saw modern life as thin and meaningless.
Farm kids have it so much better. No time for smart phones when the chickens, pigs and horses need to be fed and watered and the cows milked at 6:00am before school.
The irony of me typing this on a smart phone on my front porch is not lost on me.
"Open-mindedness can be a facade over a refusal to give up control."
Sure, that's the refusal to make a decision that closes off other options. Yet, most of us find that the only way to live deeply is to commit to a particular partner, profession, practice or place. We've all seen the person who keeps options open so long that their options expire untried and lost.
I remember my sister arguing that minds are like parachutes, working only when they are open. No, I replied, parachutes work only when they've been properly packed. I had unknowingly channeled Chesterton who I later learned had said that open minds were like open mouths, intended to close on something solid.
But it's more than making 'good decisions', - the best things that have happened to me were the (alas, too few) occasions where I said to God, "OK, do what You like with this."
That numbness is characteristic of a form of PTSD that is a result of constant exposure to a lot of very bad information.
I worked as a court clerk for most of my working life. You hear details of rapes, murders, child abuse, marital breakdown, etc., and although it is second hand, yes, it is traumatic to listen. And you must NEVER betray emotion, especially in jury cases. And eventually you stop feeling, or maybe it's that you can't access your own emotions.
I recall one particularly awful case, where a young man murdered his neighbors. He killed the parents, and then stabbed their 5 year old daughter, who survived only because she curled up on the ground, preventing her intestines from spilling out. She testified at the trial. As a clerk, I listened without batting an eyelash, and without much emotional reaction. I thought. When I got home, to my shock, I sat down and cried and cried.
That was about 10 years into clerking, and the last time the emotions made it to the surface.
About 30 years in, they required us (clerks, bailiffs, court reporters, judges, prosecuting attorneys, public defenders) to go to a PTSD seminar. Which we thought was silly, until we were there. Couple of hours in, and we're all looking at each other in a "so that's why we're all like this" way. Emotional flattening, numbness, was something many of us long-timers had noticed about ourselves and been disturbed by ; now we could see where it was coming from.
I think that many more people are inundated by negative information from Internet and TV 24-hour news and school indoctrination, and this may be a partial explanation of the numbness of young people.
It's strange how this works. Everyone is different. My nickname early on in my career (police for 3 years, fire dept for 27) was "the black cloud". I seemed to catch a lot of grizzly suicides and disturbing deaths.....children being the worst. But I always slept at night, I never cried, I never took it home. I did talk about these things openly, over a few beers, maybe a little too much, which helped.
I was coaching my son's little league game at about the age of 45. He got hit in the cheek with a baseball and his face swelled freakishly. I immediately started walking him to my car to take him to the ER. Suddenly I had tunnel vision, the earth started to swirl. I had to stop and gather myself for a good 5 minutes. The only thing that stopped the tears was not wanting to scare my son. I was surprised that I couldn't remain unemotional for this minor injury. A damn had burst. I spent some time that night staring up at the ceiling in bed.
I also know some really brave (almost recklessly so) guys, who had to be driven home from work after witnessing some nasty events. These were real, badass, brave, guys who just felt these things deeply and immediately.
The numbness you describe makes me think of the movie "The Thin Red Line". Jim Caveizel's character, Witt, seems to be willing to feel and absorb the pain of others and dies a brave death to save others. Sean Penn's character is trying to remain disengaged and numb to what he sees but near the end he seems to be trying to win back his feelings and become more like Witt. Witt, who he mocked throughout the movie. "Let me feel the lack". "One glance from your eyes and I will be yours".
Each time I have truly gone to my knees in sustained prayer (2-6 hours), God directly gives me something back. It’s profound. And even though I know this through faith and actual experience, I don’t spend nearly enough time in prayer. I’ve been trying to do better. Last night I was shown some pretty amazing things coming out of the sky during a Northern Lights display. I did not use my reason, but let go and allowed the profound awe to wash over me. I’m from Alaska, I’ve see a lot of Northern Lights. This was very different.
I spent the bulk of my career looking at a screen. If it were not for my wife’s nonnegotiable demand for fresh, homegrown summer tomatoes I’d probably have gone off my rocker. Growing tomatoes from a spec of a seed to a spreading, whopper vine by the time of frost; eating something as delicious as a homegrown tomato that grew from dirt—provided enough enchantment to ground me in the land of the sane. Look at the whole sequence of molecular events that occur during photosynthesis. Consider that all plant life, and the lives of all creatures who depend on plants, depend on photosynthesis, which occurs in every chlorophyll cell of every plant on earth. This is enough enchantment for me. A completely mechanistic universe brought photosynthesis into being? I don’t think so.
Gen Z ought to get outside, dig in the dirt, grow flowers and vegetables, the more the merrier. Dirt under their fingernails may help keep them grounded.
Attention is the negation of tension. I am a massage therapist and without fail when I am working on someone I find an area of tension the my patient is not aware of. I bring their attention to the tension and they release the tension.
We are body, soul, and spirit in unity. If I have an emotional tension I have a spiritual, mental, and physical tension.
I used to hate to do housework. When I did housework, my back would tighten up and I’d have to go lay down until my back relaxed before resuming my housework.
Then, not too long ago, I did my housework to the glory of God and in His Presence. I didn’t hate doing the housework and my back didn’t tighten up.
Rod my credit card got hacked so I need to get new number into ? So my subscription stays intact I don’t navigate Substack so well can you point me to correct place ? And can I do from phone or will I need to do from desktop?
I did find this way to put in a new credit card number. Substack makes you do it separately for each author that you subscribe to. It appears to be for desktop:
To change your credit card number on Substack, you can do the following:
Unfortunately, I couldn't understand much of what you wrote here, especially regarding practicing attention. For me, when I was twelve years old I realized that what various pastors taught had contradictions, which I figured cannot be coming from God. He won't contradict himself. So I started over with the single axiom that "God exists". That's it. If I was going to accept any part of any teaching, it had to fit in to the logical structure of what I derived from that axiom.
So for a long time, I accepted very little into my conceptual framework. Even still, the core of who I am believes in God. This is everything to me. Everything revolves around this truth.
For me, this is basically that same as Proverbs where it says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. We don't start with ourselves. We start with God. We don't worship ourselves (or the world). We worship Him.
In a sense, I don't have to have an experience of God, because He is already everything to me. He's more real than me! But I do want to see Him in truth. Not as I want Him to be. But as He is.
Everything exists because of Him. Everything is held together because of Him. Everyone only has hope for meaning because of Him.
So, I don't know what practicing attention means, but I do know that we simply need to wake up and realize He is everything. And we only exist because of Him - who amazingly wants us - and wants us to be like Him (as in the fruit of the Spirit).
God exists. That's my sole axiom. And I'm sticking with it.
Dean, are you ever tempted to doubt your one unshakable belief? Meaning do you ever entertain the notion that maybe, just maybe, atheists are right? I ask as a fellow disciple of Christ (in the making) who believes like Doubting Thomas while wishing he were more like the unshakable Apostle John.
Hi Dave. Over the years, I've heard various Christians (including pastors) tell of the times they have struggled with doubts. I honestly could never relate. At all.
Now that I'm older, the truth of God, Jesus and the bible is so clear to me, that I can't even imagine having a little doubt. I don't feel like I'm special for that. It just seems so obvious.
I actually think that science has essentially proven that God exists and that He created the Earth just to have us. This is because of the overwhelming evidence for how rare our Earth is. Read Hugh Ross's books if you want to understand this topic.
And I think the shroud of Turin effectively proves all the elements written in the gospels about the death of Christ actually happened. And I know about the carbon dating issue. But they tested the wrong part of the cloth that included more recent threads that messed up the tests.
Sometimes He’s vividly present, and at other times I can’t sense Him but I know He’s there all the same, just as it’s always sunny on the other side of the clouds.
If someone's work involves screens, then nine hours a day isn't particularly weird. But for most of us, even if we don't reach that huge number, we still spend way too much time in front of a screen - myself included, even if it's mostly reading.
Alas, there are mixed messages coming from this fine blog. Don't spend too much time in front of screens or reading, but read my posts, my new book, my old books, Paul Kingsnorth, N.E. Lyons, Camus, Mary Harrington, Luhrmann, Catherine Shannon, etc.. Also watch my appearances, Nostalghia, To the Wonder, etc. (And this is just following up on one person's work. We all have to deal with email, follow other authors/websites, have other interests, etc.)
I don't mean this mockingly but seriously: there's a lot of great material out there, both of a sort that focuses on the timeless (or transtemporal) and on what's happening in our world now, and we'll never get to the end of it. Even if all new publishing ceased, no one could even manage to read all the worthwhile material on even a tiny fraction of the religious or social/political landscape. Even just keeping up with what you're writing, even if I don't check out the links, leaves me feeling like I'm on a treadmill, and my life is only moderately busy compared to people with high-stress jobs or with large families. The project feels self-defeating: I'm invited to read read read watch watch watch so I can live a contemplative life with God and others.
It doesn't work. Maybe there is some brilliant formula for balance; if so, please share.
This is a key observation. Each of us is going to have to decide when to get off the read-watch-listen-learn mode and into another mode of life. Think about your timeline and your priorities.
Very true, but I also think that there's something potentially self-undermining about the Dreher approach, at least for his audience - or at least there's a danger there. But yes, as you say, the primary responsibility is ours.
Yes, indeed! In a recent post on sex as the obstacle standing in the way of offering oneself fully to God, I thought rather of being online. "Give me internet chastity and continence--but not just yet!" Let me first read this, then this, then this. How to break the hold of the internet, especially given that so many things we need to do involve going online?
What was the data source that ChatGPT used to reach these conclusions?
Yes, interesting. But Chat GPT put out a long analysis. Did you type in long paragraphs about the subject before getting the analysis, or what did you do? By the way, I tried Claude after someone here said i did good things. It does.
Generative AI is either an egregore or a golem, and in neither case should anyone eff with it—I assure you that the metaphysical evil encroaches.
https://mcrawford.substack.com/p/ai-as-golem-and-egregor?publication_id=1212250&post_id=150027648&isFreemail=false&r=iozj2&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
https://samkriss.substack.com/p/the-cacophony
I had an acquaintance who described himself as a seeker. Like most self proclaimed seekers he was nothing of the kind. He was a close minded dogmatic Richard Dawkins type who thought he was a very open minded type. There is a sense in which being open minded and a seeker can be good. But it has to have some end point because you wind up less open minded than empty headed and if you seek and never find you’re just acting out Sisyphus. You’re something of a shadow person. Also it’s worth pointing out , the pose of seeker is fashionable and validated in our society. I “ love” these books or movies where someone “ seeks”. It’s probably going to be Julia Roberts eating entire pizzas and finding love in Bali. ( She could never have stayed so thin with all that pizza). As a shallow fashionable pose , it’s tedious and trivializing.
Very well said, amen
I consider myself a finder, personally. . . . You're also making me think here of Zygmunt Bauman's distinction between the pilgrim and the tourist.
I always think "Eat, Pray, Love" would have been more interesting -- just in terms of the narrative, leaving my religious preference aside -- with the eating in India, and the praying in Italy.
Indian food is more interesting than Italian
The praying in Italy would have involved joining an actual congregation, and mingling with the locals. She might have even found love there too, and not needed to go on to Bali! I'm not really making a statement of preference for Catholicism over Hinduism here, even, just a cultural one; her time in the ashram didn't involve as-it-is-lived Hinduism, or much interaction with actual Hindus, and she mainly associated with other affluent Americans.
I think that you gave this way more thought than the author ever gave it. And also, true story about the Indian food.
I’m glad you caught the Eat, Love , Pray reference. The author of the book lived not too far from where I am for years . Anyway ELP - the movie- is laughably dumb.
I bet I know how Woody Allen got McLuhan to do that cameo. He was a big pal of Buckley's (he appeared on one of his television comedy specials) who was also friends with Hugh Kenner, the great teacher and critic who correctly assessed the specific gravity of Pound's place in the great modernist revolution. I bet Allen called Buckley, who called Kenner, who called McLuhan. It was McLuhan, btw, who drove with Kenner down to D.C. to visit Pound for the first time at St. Elizabeth's.
Detective Ted cracks the case! (And gets a chemistry / fluid mechanics reference in to boot).
Whatever miscellanea is not known by Ted, Rod and Prof Tighe is probably not particularly worth knowing.
I heard Kenner speak once, at UMass. He smoked Kent Lights.
1) Frankly, this newsletter helps start my day thinking of God.
2) Those checked-out people need Hillary Clinton. Remember her statement about a “politics of meaning”?
She’s a demon. Pure evil
OT: Because of association, once this may have been sufficient to sink the entire Harris/Walz campaign. It may still do some damage. Understand the nature of your enemies, they are not like you.
https://nypost.com/2024/10/10/us-news/why-is-gretchen-whitmer-feeding-a-left-wing-influencer-doritos/
Freedom of Choice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVGINIsLnqU
The dog who found 2 bones always makes me think of this video by Devo. It's fun, so 1980, and true and features great Aliens and leisure suits! Mark Mothersbaugh has made a fortune since those times doing soundtracks for kids programming and movies. His soundtrack for the movie "Rushmore", is a great compilation of British Invasion songs, and is a favorite of mine.
I used to love Devo in high school, though it was several years after their peak popularity time. I still have a bunch of their records at my house, which my husband has been forced to lug from place to place for around a quarter-century now. I listened to them in the car just this morning.
"Dada gone camp" is the best description I've heard of DEVO.
Excellent, one of my favorite bands of all time. Finally saw them in concert for the first time in 2010, when their "Something For Everybody" tour took them to Atlanta. Being based at Ft. Benning at the time, prepping to be a Drill Sergeant, I was close enough to drive there.
Still am a huge fan. Two years ago, I got to attend DEVOtional for the first time, a fan gathering of the DEVOted, and bands that play music inspired by the same. I got to meet the indie band, Fantastic Plastics. Tyson and Miranda, and Chicken Burger Disco (he programs the rhythm tracks in their drum machines and produces their videos.) Here they are, with a barn burner version of DEVO's Gates of Steel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yd2YPjM2lo
It's vaguely making me think of that John Carpenter film *They Live*. You know, the one where you put on the glasses and then you can instantly decode all the ideological messages and see the reptilians.
I remember watching a show about a family from California who were dropped into a rural patch of land and had to live like a settler. Built their cabin and animal pens, planted a garden, etc. The son about 12 left his video games and smart phones behind and he and his dog roamed the land. They hunted, gathered, cooked and were healthier, stronger, more fulfilled. Fascinating show. After it was over they returned to life in modern society and were all thoroughly miserable. The son yearned for the woods and freedom. They saw modern life as thin and meaningless.
Farm kids have it so much better. No time for smart phones when the chickens, pigs and horses need to be fed and watered and the cows milked at 6:00am before school.
The irony of me typing this on a smart phone on my front porch is not lost on me.
https://www.amazon.com/Coming-into-Country-John-McPhee-ebook/dp/B004YES2GC/ref=sr_1_5?crid=1CTAG57LWGQW7&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.2-_n4Hr9R5m55P_eq4N6z98ufqtxlzIfV-ixo9iWY5t9yvJwjlWcyLw4nOY3Fyxv8iMbgLlpZpN3EOdlJl2wrHHE5onf_evo3T-TwYx-p23968I2lLpYZI3R2o-RajqNLXzA0xUqY-J1yCi8X5-dTewTHPGIkCWoaMSY5ELg0guZdtLGRaQfskwi7Aosm6oEt6O4IyYw5stFa_5f2tawgWYOTfDqoUxPwyBDtdpfPUX36sBMqhv2sOydqQorpwMc2KDjwJClQBizjrwRa4-BREfb92_VN8QSBZAZroLwBv4.nfUCRDF3lHk77Rw3tmBrMR9BNqeIwikEXqOm2EcqfDM&dib_tag=se&keywords=john+mcphee&qid=1728672748&sprefix=john+mcphee%2Caps%2C185&sr=8-5
Frontier House? Pioneer House?
"Open-mindedness can be a facade over a refusal to give up control."
Sure, that's the refusal to make a decision that closes off other options. Yet, most of us find that the only way to live deeply is to commit to a particular partner, profession, practice or place. We've all seen the person who keeps options open so long that their options expire untried and lost.
I remember my sister arguing that minds are like parachutes, working only when they are open. No, I replied, parachutes work only when they've been properly packed. I had unknowingly channeled Chesterton who I later learned had said that open minds were like open mouths, intended to close on something solid.
But it's more than making 'good decisions', - the best things that have happened to me were the (alas, too few) occasions where I said to God, "OK, do what You like with this."
That numbness is characteristic of a form of PTSD that is a result of constant exposure to a lot of very bad information.
I worked as a court clerk for most of my working life. You hear details of rapes, murders, child abuse, marital breakdown, etc., and although it is second hand, yes, it is traumatic to listen. And you must NEVER betray emotion, especially in jury cases. And eventually you stop feeling, or maybe it's that you can't access your own emotions.
I recall one particularly awful case, where a young man murdered his neighbors. He killed the parents, and then stabbed their 5 year old daughter, who survived only because she curled up on the ground, preventing her intestines from spilling out. She testified at the trial. As a clerk, I listened without batting an eyelash, and without much emotional reaction. I thought. When I got home, to my shock, I sat down and cried and cried.
That was about 10 years into clerking, and the last time the emotions made it to the surface.
About 30 years in, they required us (clerks, bailiffs, court reporters, judges, prosecuting attorneys, public defenders) to go to a PTSD seminar. Which we thought was silly, until we were there. Couple of hours in, and we're all looking at each other in a "so that's why we're all like this" way. Emotional flattening, numbness, was something many of us long-timers had noticed about ourselves and been disturbed by ; now we could see where it was coming from.
I think that many more people are inundated by negative information from Internet and TV 24-hour news and school indoctrination, and this may be a partial explanation of the numbness of young people.
It's strange how this works. Everyone is different. My nickname early on in my career (police for 3 years, fire dept for 27) was "the black cloud". I seemed to catch a lot of grizzly suicides and disturbing deaths.....children being the worst. But I always slept at night, I never cried, I never took it home. I did talk about these things openly, over a few beers, maybe a little too much, which helped.
I was coaching my son's little league game at about the age of 45. He got hit in the cheek with a baseball and his face swelled freakishly. I immediately started walking him to my car to take him to the ER. Suddenly I had tunnel vision, the earth started to swirl. I had to stop and gather myself for a good 5 minutes. The only thing that stopped the tears was not wanting to scare my son. I was surprised that I couldn't remain unemotional for this minor injury. A damn had burst. I spent some time that night staring up at the ceiling in bed.
I also know some really brave (almost recklessly so) guys, who had to be driven home from work after witnessing some nasty events. These were real, badass, brave, guys who just felt these things deeply and immediately.
The numbness you describe makes me think of the movie "The Thin Red Line". Jim Caveizel's character, Witt, seems to be willing to feel and absorb the pain of others and dies a brave death to save others. Sean Penn's character is trying to remain disengaged and numb to what he sees but near the end he seems to be trying to win back his feelings and become more like Witt. Witt, who he mocked throughout the movie. "Let me feel the lack". "One glance from your eyes and I will be yours".
Each time I have truly gone to my knees in sustained prayer (2-6 hours), God directly gives me something back. It’s profound. And even though I know this through faith and actual experience, I don’t spend nearly enough time in prayer. I’ve been trying to do better. Last night I was shown some pretty amazing things coming out of the sky during a Northern Lights display. I did not use my reason, but let go and allowed the profound awe to wash over me. I’m from Alaska, I’ve see a lot of Northern Lights. This was very different.
I spent the bulk of my career looking at a screen. If it were not for my wife’s nonnegotiable demand for fresh, homegrown summer tomatoes I’d probably have gone off my rocker. Growing tomatoes from a spec of a seed to a spreading, whopper vine by the time of frost; eating something as delicious as a homegrown tomato that grew from dirt—provided enough enchantment to ground me in the land of the sane. Look at the whole sequence of molecular events that occur during photosynthesis. Consider that all plant life, and the lives of all creatures who depend on plants, depend on photosynthesis, which occurs in every chlorophyll cell of every plant on earth. This is enough enchantment for me. A completely mechanistic universe brought photosynthesis into being? I don’t think so.
Gen Z ought to get outside, dig in the dirt, grow flowers and vegetables, the more the merrier. Dirt under their fingernails may help keep them grounded.
Attention is the negation of tension. I am a massage therapist and without fail when I am working on someone I find an area of tension the my patient is not aware of. I bring their attention to the tension and they release the tension.
We are body, soul, and spirit in unity. If I have an emotional tension I have a spiritual, mental, and physical tension.
I used to hate to do housework. When I did housework, my back would tighten up and I’d have to go lay down until my back relaxed before resuming my housework.
Then, not too long ago, I did my housework to the glory of God and in His Presence. I didn’t hate doing the housework and my back didn’t tighten up.
Rod my credit card got hacked so I need to get new number into ? So my subscription stays intact I don’t navigate Substack so well can you point me to correct place ? And can I do from phone or will I need to do from desktop?
I did find this way to put in a new credit card number. Substack makes you do it separately for each author that you subscribe to. It appears to be for desktop:
To change your credit card number on Substack, you can do the following:
Log in to your Substack account at www.Substack.com/settings
Scroll to Subscriptions
Click on the publication you want to update
In the Payment Information section, select Edit next to Payment Method
Enter your new card information and click Save
Unfortunately, I couldn't understand much of what you wrote here, especially regarding practicing attention. For me, when I was twelve years old I realized that what various pastors taught had contradictions, which I figured cannot be coming from God. He won't contradict himself. So I started over with the single axiom that "God exists". That's it. If I was going to accept any part of any teaching, it had to fit in to the logical structure of what I derived from that axiom.
So for a long time, I accepted very little into my conceptual framework. Even still, the core of who I am believes in God. This is everything to me. Everything revolves around this truth.
For me, this is basically that same as Proverbs where it says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. We don't start with ourselves. We start with God. We don't worship ourselves (or the world). We worship Him.
In a sense, I don't have to have an experience of God, because He is already everything to me. He's more real than me! But I do want to see Him in truth. Not as I want Him to be. But as He is.
Everything exists because of Him. Everything is held together because of Him. Everyone only has hope for meaning because of Him.
So, I don't know what practicing attention means, but I do know that we simply need to wake up and realize He is everything. And we only exist because of Him - who amazingly wants us - and wants us to be like Him (as in the fruit of the Spirit).
God exists. That's my sole axiom. And I'm sticking with it.
Dean, are you ever tempted to doubt your one unshakable belief? Meaning do you ever entertain the notion that maybe, just maybe, atheists are right? I ask as a fellow disciple of Christ (in the making) who believes like Doubting Thomas while wishing he were more like the unshakable Apostle John.
Hi Dave. Over the years, I've heard various Christians (including pastors) tell of the times they have struggled with doubts. I honestly could never relate. At all.
Now that I'm older, the truth of God, Jesus and the bible is so clear to me, that I can't even imagine having a little doubt. I don't feel like I'm special for that. It just seems so obvious.
I actually think that science has essentially proven that God exists and that He created the Earth just to have us. This is because of the overwhelming evidence for how rare our Earth is. Read Hugh Ross's books if you want to understand this topic.
And I think the shroud of Turin effectively proves all the elements written in the gospels about the death of Christ actually happened. And I know about the carbon dating issue. But they tested the wrong part of the cloth that included more recent threads that messed up the tests.
Sometimes He’s vividly present, and at other times I can’t sense Him but I know He’s there all the same, just as it’s always sunny on the other side of the clouds.
Just a random thought on LGBT.
Shouldn't the 'G' come first? GLBT is correct!
LGBT is radical feminism.
Ha! These folks would like that change: https://www.lgb.com
If someone's work involves screens, then nine hours a day isn't particularly weird. But for most of us, even if we don't reach that huge number, we still spend way too much time in front of a screen - myself included, even if it's mostly reading.
Alas, there are mixed messages coming from this fine blog. Don't spend too much time in front of screens or reading, but read my posts, my new book, my old books, Paul Kingsnorth, N.E. Lyons, Camus, Mary Harrington, Luhrmann, Catherine Shannon, etc.. Also watch my appearances, Nostalghia, To the Wonder, etc. (And this is just following up on one person's work. We all have to deal with email, follow other authors/websites, have other interests, etc.)
I don't mean this mockingly but seriously: there's a lot of great material out there, both of a sort that focuses on the timeless (or transtemporal) and on what's happening in our world now, and we'll never get to the end of it. Even if all new publishing ceased, no one could even manage to read all the worthwhile material on even a tiny fraction of the religious or social/political landscape. Even just keeping up with what you're writing, even if I don't check out the links, leaves me feeling like I'm on a treadmill, and my life is only moderately busy compared to people with high-stress jobs or with large families. The project feels self-defeating: I'm invited to read read read watch watch watch so I can live a contemplative life with God and others.
It doesn't work. Maybe there is some brilliant formula for balance; if so, please share.
This is a key observation. Each of us is going to have to decide when to get off the read-watch-listen-learn mode and into another mode of life. Think about your timeline and your priorities.
Very true, but I also think that there's something potentially self-undermining about the Dreher approach, at least for his audience - or at least there's a danger there. But yes, as you say, the primary responsibility is ours.
Yes, indeed! In a recent post on sex as the obstacle standing in the way of offering oneself fully to God, I thought rather of being online. "Give me internet chastity and continence--but not just yet!" Let me first read this, then this, then this. How to break the hold of the internet, especially given that so many things we need to do involve going online?
E. Hansen's wife