ahhhhh, see I am able to return to my three coffees a day thanks to anxiety medication (but I still sleep poorly)

that's when I realized I needed to get medicated for anxiety (not to presume!, but goodness, it's stopped the eye-twitching)

More importantly than all this Beethoven nonsense, this afternoon as #1 practiced and I practiced, I realized that when he gets older and better with the double-bass he and I could join the local (amateur) Symphony Orchestra together (I would play flute)

Anyhow, I'm listening to Piano Concerto No. 1, and it's wonderful because every *shape* of the piano-playing fits patterns I recognize from the Sonatas. The trills and the turns are in the same place, the emotional fabric is consistent - it's like saying hello to an old friend and not losing a beat.

I'm a deep Beethoven Sonata nerd. I have strong feelings about opus 10 (which is a bundle of three sonatas together, Nos. 5-7) - I think opus 10, no. 2, mvt 2's melody resides somewhere in between my heart and my gut - and I've been playing opus 13 (Sonata No. 8, Pathetique) for over two decades now

on a comparative note, every time I hear Gordon Lightfoot sing this line, I find myself turning to Gerard Manley Hopkins' Wreck of the Deutschland

okay okay, this is going on my “we’re in the Lou and don’t want to eat at the same place we always do” list now!

uh… where??????????

I usually write out at least my first draft (although it evolves as I shift from handwritten to typing midway through the week!)

“in twenty years the evangelicals will be New Atheists and the New Atheists will be fascists” is one of those things I wouldn’t have believed circa 2005

also, every now and again, unbidden I hear Whitman's "Beat! Beat! Drums!" but specifically in the version written for choir and orchestra by Ralph Vaughan Williams (I have a lot of Whitman in my head thanks to RVW)

how does one argue matters of the faith with a person whose greatest authority and standard of interpretation is fundamentally disconnected from both reality and text and history? or how easily people get caught up in the newest "thought-fad" in evangelical groupthink?

by "antitheology" I mean the rejection by popular and folk forms of Christianity of anything resembling an ordered system of knowing about God, tied to the testimony of Scripture and vetted by scholars embedded in that church's traditions, etc., and instead elevating random BS of people like this

why am I just now learning that Jim Henson's memorial service was hosted by the Episcopalians??

My primary Bible journey was something like this:

Paperback Youth-oriented NKJV
KeyWord NIV with Heb/Greek Dictionary
Interlinear Bible (with its own literalist translation)
ESV Study Bible
Cambridge NRSV

and what’s wild is that I think every single one of these was a gift 🤣

YES, this is precisely true. And the worst part of the ESV Study Bible notes are they’re replete with *great* illustrations, and then the notes themselves are filled with of all kinds of exegetical and theological errors. ☠️

I used to be a doubter of the NLT, but over time I do think it does what the NIV aspired to do, and for a new generation!, there’s a subtlety to the NLT’s decisions that I’ve grown to appreciate!

and, to the observation @evanwelch.bsky.social made underneath, they can't seem to understand that their "content creation" does not have the same explanatory power as... ... well, real propaganda