I've been playing "spy vs spy" with a burglar at Living Stones for the last few months. He mostly steals from our renters. They've lost two sound systems. He cuts or breaks something, we harden, back and forth we go. Bigger locks, etc. He even moved into one of the sheds temporarily after he busted open the lock. There's nothing of value in those sheds.

"Science" in our culture is a replacement word for "certainty". That's what the word means most of the time in common discourse. It has little to do with what people think it means. Why do we crave certainty? Because we are fearful, small, short-lived creatures who can have everything we value stripped from us by a virus, a car accident, an computer glitch, or a war.

I can so relate to this. It is the meaningful joy and heartbreak of ministry. I know my father was here. I know I am. Great ending to the @jordanbpeterson @joerogan podcast. D stopped by today. It is his 63rd birthday. I wish I had a cake. We heated up a TV dinner. He said he didn't sleep last night. That means he's in his manic phase. 3 days from now he'll crash. I've watched him cycle for over a decade now. Lord have mercy.

When @jordanbpeterson said he had a BIG announcement to make on @joerogan I had no idea just how ambitious it would be. I don't know if I've seen anything this ambitious since the United Nations was conceptualized. open.spotify.com/episode/4GJZmm… What made it so ambitious was not even the vision to compete with the WEF as a think-tank to resource world political leaders but the fact that he was explicitly grounding it all in a vision derived from his reading of the Bible.

Stopped by to see a friend today. I hadn't seen him for a few days so I wanted to check to how he was doing. About 6 months ago after cycling him through the psych ward about every month for 6 months he got into sort of a halfway house. That lasted for 6 months.

I've been struggling to make a video about why the @CRCNA will almost certainly split in the next few years. Here's the argument in shorter form. The YT Channel "Ready to Harvest" recently did a video on denominations he believes will suffer a split in the near future. The @CRCNA was the first on his list. As usual his research was meticulous and accurate.

In John 20 Peter and the Blessed Disciple head into the tomb only seeing the wrappings. Mary lingers, weeping. What a poignant picture. When she finally heads in to find two angels. The Beloved Disciple believes at seeing the empty tomb. Peter, it seems, will take a little while perhaps. Mary gets angels and is so disrupted by her grief that she isn't stunned by an angelic appearance, as is normal.

Today's video is about 1/3 of a larger conversation that had 3 pretty distinct parts that I didn't want to get overlooked. In this part my conversation partner shares her experience in a conservative, @roddreher type Benedict option community To summarize some of her story she converted to RC from Missouri Synod Lutheranism, almost became a nun, married, and went with her husband to live in a small town that was attracting Trad Catholics who wanted to have their faith reinforced by community.

In today's video I do a commentary on the first hour of @peternlimberg 's Stoa's conversation with @Freakoutery @johnrobb @jgreenhall I hadn't heard about "the swarm" or the "autocult" but this comparing notes was super helpful.

B is awake, about 2pm. Watching something on his cell phone. It's up a bit loud. He's 74 and probably getting a bit hard of hearing. He'll clean up his bedding, put them in the spot he usually uses and shuffle off to panhandle for the rest of the daylight. At some point he'll use that money to buy some food, mostly snack stuff or cooked meats. At some point tonight he'll get his drugs and then fall sleep, and the cycle continues.

So you say you need a revolution... oh yeah you know... everybody wants to change the world... nytimes.com/2022/03/21/opi… And of course not to be left behind "in the dark" as it were... washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/…

In today's video I take a look at @jonstewart . He's a famous guy who went from a marginally successful comedian to a significant figure in American Politics after 9/11 and the second Iraq War. For many born in the 1960s the second Iraq war was a sort of second Vietnam in terms of "sense-making" as @WisdomRebel likes to call it. @jonstewart exemplifies this.

I don't think most listeners have much appreciation for just how radical @holland_tom answer to @gavinashenden 's question is for drowsy secular liberals in the West. Secularism, a Christian invention, is based on a sort of "opt-out" posture regarding "faith" positions. Human rights is the law of the West, the law of the United Nations, but @holland_tom asserts it's just as much an article of faith as Christ's resurrection.

In today's video I offer one of the reasons I see for the success of @jordanbpeterson 's Biblical series. The scientistic lab leak (removing the first personal from observation in an attempt to establish a monarchical vision) over-elevated a correspondence definition of "truth".

People seem to imagine that what the homeless need is more stuff. Most of the homeless I deal with on a daily basis have more stuff than they know what to do with. A good amount of the garbage the church pays to have hauled away is stuff abandoned by the homeless The amount of sympathy for the homeless is a mile wide and an inch deep. By the time someone starts sleeping at my church they are the most hardcore homeless around. Mental illness. Drug habits. Complete rupture of their familial networks.

I've been doing "thief in the night" livestreams lately. I call them that because I come unannounced into the Discord server and see what mix of randos I can find and what kind of conversation we can generate. One guy who I spoke with a couple of years ago who used to be an angry atheist shared how he was joining the Coptic church in the UK and wanted to talk about all the interest in Orthodoxy. Hence the meme I made.

Today's video is a massive mess teased by a click-baity title. I also happen to think that the title is true. The length is obscene which has the beneficial effect of mostly limiting the content of the video to my core audience that usually for vocational reasons can digest VERY LONG video content.

@SteeleMannFS @holland_tom this is like a guy coming back from a California reservoir with a glass of fresh water declaring "we absolutely must NOT get our water from the clouds..." OK... @SteeleMannFS @holland_tom He imagines his support for gay marriage was cooked up in some Christianity free clean room. I suppose his immune system is so strong because it never met a germ.

I'm getting so old. I remember in the 1970s the "cutting edge" of "gender equality" was assertion that one's clothing, haircut, and various other lifestyle expressions and choices didn't define you. Boys could have their hair long, girls could wear pants. Boys could talk about feelings, girls could play sports, that was OK.

Thanks to a friend we finally replaced the stolen mailbox with a mail slot here at the church. Couldn't find what I wanted for a sign so I went to Amazon to figure out how to mark the outside of the slot to help the postal people get delivery right.

In today's video I summed up some of my learnings from @fullydavid and @Jonathan_Rowson from the previous day's video and refocused via @andrewklavan and @jordanbpeterson 1/4 The realization become increasingly stark of a man who correctly warns of ideology filling in the void left by the removal of religious communities himself does not participate in religious communities. I agree with his thesis. Do his actions exhibit agreement? 2/4