Spurgeon: Rejoice in creation (old and new)

Posted on by

scotland

This is a guest post by the Prince of Preachers, C.H. Spurgeon. I would say it’s my favorite excerpt from his sermons, but that’s not entirely accurate, as it’s the only Spurgeon excerpt I’ve ever read. Still, I can’t imagine finding one I like more than this.

—–

I must confess that I think it a most right and excellent thing that you and I should rejoice in the natural creation of God. I do not think that any man is altogether beyond hope who can take delight in the nightly heavens as he watches the stars, and feel joy as he treads the meadows all bedecked with kingcups and daisies. He is not lost to better things who, on the waves, rejoices in the creeping things innumerable drawn up from the vasty deep, or who, in the woods, is charmed with the sweet carols of the feathered minstrels.

Continue reading →

Kids these days

Posted on by

Today, I read in an article that 12-year-old boys in a handful of California counties can now place online orders for free condoms and lubricant without the consent of their parents. In other words: whether they want to or not, or are even aware of it, taxpaying parents are buying prophylactics and lube for their newly pubescent sons.

The article features the sad tale of Juan Bautista, a high school senior and teen father:

When Bautista was having sex with his former girlfriend, he said condoms were not a priority. ‘I would go into a store, but end up buying a soda,’ he said.

Continue reading →

Review and Recommendation: Bound Together

Posted on by

BoundTogetherAs a general rule, I get a little cynical about books that open with big promises. And Chris Brauns’ Bound Together: How We Are Tied to Others in Good and Bad Choices opens with a doozie: If I “carefully investigate the reality that we are deeply connected to one another,” he claims, I will “discover truth that is fundamental to all real joy.” And then he doubles down: “Indeed, without the truth that we are bound together there is no joy.”

Those are big promises, and right out of the gate. But before I tell you if he keeps his word—before I tell you whether I’ve discovered a truth that is fundamental to all real joy—I’ll walk through the basics of his book.

Continue reading →

Deny Yourself

Posted on by

No Limits SignAt 30 years old, I’m on the leading edge of what has, for some time now, been called the most selfish generation in history. In a memorable article from The New York Times Magazine, Judith Warner wrote that our generation—born between 1982 and 2002—has been depicted “by employers, professors and earnestly concerned mental-health experts as entitled whiners who have been spoiled by parents who overstoked [our] self-esteem, teachers who granted undeserved A’s and sports coaches who bestowed trophies on any player who showed up.”

Ouch. That stings a little, but I don’t disagree with the general idea. I’m not convinced, however, that the problem can be explained by pandering parents, grade inflation or equal-outcome sports. It goes much deeper than that.

Continue reading →

The truth incarnate

Posted on by

artofthehobbit1Jack often asks me why I like The Lord of the Rings so much, and I usually tell him it’s because I think it’s one of the best stories ever told. What I really want to say is that I think it’s one of the truest stories ever told, but I don’t think he’s quite old enough to get the difference between ‘true’ and ‘real.’

Earlier today I read an essay called “In Praise of Stories” (one of the many excellent essays in The Christian Imagination) that touches on the same topic:

But what do we mean by a true story?… In what helpful sense is a fictional story about a boy and a slave on a raft, or, worse yet, a story about hobbits and wizards, true? Here is the answer: Any story is true, fictional or otherwise, that testifies accurately to the human condition.

Continue reading →

Storytime pt. Five, or Narnia’s Deep Magic

Posted on by

lucy+and+mr+tumnusIt’s a wonderful thing to be proud of my son. As a general rule, it doesn’t take a lot: cleaning his room without too much struggle, eating his veggies without the same, cracking his own eggs in the morning, coloring inside the lines, saying his own prayer at dinner. But new heights of pride were reached only a few days ago when, after watching the 1979 made-for-TV cartoon of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, he turned to me and said, “Dad, is there a book of this movie?”

Why, yes. Yes there is. I took my old paperback off the shelf to show him. “Here it is, buddy. But it’s for older kids, see?” I flipped through the pages so he could see the astonishing number of words and relative lack of pictures. “I’ll read it to you when you get older.”

“Can you read it to me now?”

Continue reading →