I’ve been obsessive about ‘Close’ for three years now, and kick myself for missing them at the tiniest of local clubs this past year. With an album like ‘The Spin,’ I have a feeling that their days of playing 80-100 cap places will soon be long gone. Such a powerful band.

‘Civics After Midnight,’ from
A Crown For Abba Moses: new and selected poems by Timothy E. G. Bartel

Part of education is prepping all involved for real life dynamics. In this case, that vacillating school schedule is just like whether or not democracy is still real and even moderately functional today. You just never know, y’know?

They and the poetry of the Syriac Fathers, particularly Jacob of Serug and Ephrem of Syrus, changed the whole game for me.

Ha! Figured you’d tell me, and that I’d catch hell from others who care about me about any sleep-misogynizing I was doing on the internets.

Obviously I catastrophize when I haven’t gulped down caffeine and slept enough. Goodness.

The way, my bleary-eyed, pre-coffee brain just went “Wait, is this me? Did Lindsay ever call me pastor, and did I make a shift to ex-Padre? Did I change my handle to this? Am I even on Twitter anymore? Was I sleep-tweeting misogynistic MAGA hot takes? And if so, what the crap did I eat last night?”

The long understanding of prayer & the Christian spiritual life as that “joy of feeling close to God,” as Romero described it, the joy of a true solidarity exemplified in Christ (who was freaking INCARNATE EMPATHY), and now we’re here: “the heart, in those days… small… hard, and full of meanness.

This is both wild and sickly unsurprising.

I’m always glad when this band gets some appreciation.

That’s what Jenn was listening to in college, along with Point of Grace. I somehow skipped almost 99% of most CCM, diving right into
90’s alt Christian weirdness like early Tooth & Nail and Blonde Vinyl!

“I used to illegally download mid-90’s emo & hardcore songs, but I’ve seen the error of my ways.”

Def holier than me, friend.

If we’re using classic equipment, we use our classic ninja training.

I either rip MP3s directly into my laptop or download the good stuff from certain online locations that enable access to such things - and by “such things,” I do mean “albums that are largely out of print by bands that only a weird old niche of us remember, but that my kids still enjoy”.