5 Quick Things #234 🌿
neighbors, conversions, boundaries, and time travel
Good morning from Central Texas, and a (happy?) Good Friday to you,
I admittedly never know how to greet someone on this day. Perhaps because the very name “Good” Friday is a sort of paradox, meant to flip the script and cause us to pause and realize what we’re actually saying? Either way, of course it is a good Friday, and yet it’s a day when we’re purposely meant to grieve.
Sometimes we naturally feel it, sometimes we don’t. Some years we want to intentionally lean in what it must have felt like to walk with Jesus, in real time; other years Lent has already felt so long and hard and we want to simply wade through the Triduum so we can finally move into Eastertide. I get both tendencies.
If you’re not sure what to do with yourself today, might I suggest finding a Good Friday service for this evening, or perhaps walking a Stations of the Cross? Don’t worry about how you “feel” — God knows. Just sit with the day.
That’s what I’m doing with myself today, anyway.
5 Quick Things ☕️
1. 👉 New episode of A Drink With a Friend! 👈 It’s now my turn to give an update on my six-month challenge — to live as much as I can within my 100-mile radius. Just a few things I’m contemplating: How do we live according to our unique values without being legalistic? And how do we gracefully handle the privilege that most of us have?
2. Bonhoeffer apparently had a theory on stupidity, and that it’s this stupidity — as opposed to simple ignorance or even malice — that causes our civic discourse to decay. Alexandra Hudson explains the idea well.
3. I agree wholeheartedly with Tiffany Owens’ thoughts on why it’s not enough to be in a digital community, that as our culture veers ever more into virtual everything, we need to immerse ourselves in our proximate community: “Building this community of proximity takes courage because we don’t know who we will run into. ...It’s precisely because we can’t control who’s included in our community that we are challenged to grow in a certain kind of love.”
4. I don’t talk much (yet) about my journey to Catholicism after 40-plus years of being Protestant, mostly because I’m still in learning mode. But I do enjoy sharing the occasional thing that helps me continue to learn — like this recent conversation among really smart friends (here it is in podcast form).
5. And finally, even though the color may not be 100% accurate and the added sound is a guest at best, it still feels like a time travel portal to 1920’s Paris. I’ll take it. (I also love how they’re all staring at this new-fangled camera…)
Currently Reading, Watching, Listening 📚
1984, by George Orwell
Quotable 💬
“When a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.”
— C.S. Lewis #
Quick Links 🔗
We’re Grateful!
We consider A Drink With a Friend a communal effort. You’re invited to grab yourself a drink at the counter, pull up a chair around the table, and join us in our weekly discussions — on the house! And whenever you pick up a round of drinks, you help make the conversations continue, and we’re so honored when you do. Your kind words remind us that you appreciate this scrappy little thing we do in this corner of the smoky internet pub. Thanks.
Question(s) For You to Ponder… 🤔
In what small, daily way will you remember to celebrate the gift that is Eastertide for its full 50 days?
Have a great weekend,
Tsh
p.s. What a simple but smart way to think of both to-do lists and boundaries.
