Hello, friends!
The usual engines are still puttering right along — my newsletter, my mostly-photos micro.blog page — but the BLOG has been hopping so far this year. Things could slow down soon, because classes start in a few days and teaching is, after all, my day job (also my heart-and-soul job). But for now anyway stuff is happening. Examples:
Two years ago I declared The Year of Hypomone, and last year The Year of Repair, but this year will be The Year of Focal Practices. That post explains what I mean, and if you click/tap the "focus" tag at the bottom of that post you'll be taken to some follow-up posts.
The emphasis on focal practices is really an extension or development of the Invitation and Repair project, so click that link to see all posts on that theme.
For reasons I'm not quite ready to explain, I'm also writing a good bit about movies — chiefly but not exclusively old movies. (All will be revealed ... in good time.)
I'm also, through micro.blog, continuing to do the occasional audio post or microcast about Jesus. Those are intermittent now but I hope will become more frequent in the coming weeks. I explained in my last message on this site how you can listen to those posts in your podcast player.
I have a new essay out about Oliver Sacks and human sufferers as persons, not numbers. That's behind a paywall right now, though at some point it will be available to all. (But do consider subscribing to The New Atlantis, which is a wonderful journal.)
In the next few weeks I'll have an essay appearing in Comment on the inimitable Albert Murray and what he, though not a Christian, offers to the church.
A great way to keep up with everything interesting online, is to use RSS -- Really Simple Syndication. As I explain in this post, it's the ideal way to keep up-to-date on what you want to see online while avoiding all the junk you don't want to see. RSS is actually everywhere, though we don't always know it: it's what allows Facebook to give you new posts and Twitter new tweets and your podcast player new episodes. In an RSS reader (app or website) you can see everything you want to see without ads and without distractions. So if you happen to be interested in what I write — and I devoutly hope you are 😉 — you can subscribe to the feeds from my big blog and my micro.blog without having to remember to visit the sites. It's a wonderful technology!
Grace and peace to you all,
AJ