Re-upping my 2023 essay on Murray:
My thesis can be simply stated: There is today no more important writer for North American Christians to read than Albert Murray β a man who, as far as I know, had no religious belief whatsoever. But he held as his guiding principle an idea that Christians today cannot flourish without adopting: βthe blues idiomβ β otherwise known as life in the briar patch.
Slightly concerned about the competence of my Uber driver.
Another wonderful Szymborska poem: “Consolation.”
Exodus 35:Β
The children of Israel brought a willing offering unto the LORD, every man and woman, whose heart made them willing to bring for all manner of work, which the LORD had commanded to be made by the hand of Moses. And Moses said unto the children of Israel, See, the Lord hath called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah; and he hath filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship; and to devise curious works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in the cutting of stones, to set them, and in carving of wood, to make any manner of cunning work. And he hath put in his heart that he may teach, both he, and Aholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan. Them hath he filled with wisdom of heart, to work all manner of work, of the engraver, and of the cunning workman, and of the embroiderer, in blue, and in purple, in scarlet, and in fine linen, and of the weaver, even of them that do any work, and of those that devise cunning work.Β
I wrote a few years ago about the men and women of cunning. One of the writings Iβm most proud of.Β
This video of Bill Evans, Eddie Gomez, and a sitting-in drummer (in Copenhagen I think, 1966) is astonishing. Absolutely riveting from beginning to end.
I accidentally used the flash on my phone early this morning, but I enjoy the painterly look the phone’s software created here. I tend to like computational photography best when it’s trying unsuccessfully to imitate actual light.
Dorothy L. Sayers, from her essay “Why Work?” (1942):
War is a judgment that overtakes societies when they have been living upon ideas that conflict too violently with the laws governing the universe…. Never think that wars are irrational catastrophes: they happen when wrong ways of thinking and living bring about intolerable situations; and whichever side may be the more outrageous in its aims and the more brutal in its methods, the root causes of conflict are usually to be found in some wrong way of life in which all parties have acquiesced, and for which everybody must, to some extent, bear the blame.
It strikes me that this is equally true of the culture war that Americans have been fighting with one another for quite some time.
Every day is a good day to read WisΕawa Szymborska’s “Children of Our Age.”