Seth Haines's Blog, page 23
June 27, 2017
Algebraic Sexism and the Wisdom From Failure
Yesterday I identified the problem:
Modern self-helpism
is built upon this little self-aggrandizing untruth:
Failure can be avoided if you apply the right formula, my formula.
We see this self-helpism at work in the world around us, on Twitter, Facebook, the bookstore shelves (even in the Christian Living section of said bookstore). Success sells. Beauty sells. Self-actualization sells. Pristine spirituality sells. Here’s what doesn’t sell quite so well–failure. Isn’t failure a prerequisite...
June 26, 2017
The Truth About Failure
We live in an era of bite-sized wisdom, of perpetual self-help, of too many mini-gurus. Yesterday, I cruised Twitter for less than thirty seconds, and in that thirty seconds, I found all the answers to life’s pressing problems. Allow me to recap.
Mini-Guru No. 1 shared how I might maximize my profit by working less and living more.
Mini-Guru No. 2 offered a pinnable platitude (a cliche, really) about who-knows-what-? by stringing together an embarrassing number of pseudo-Christian words that...
June 21, 2017
Nurturing Fragile Vows (On Marriage)
When you’re 22, what is marriage? What is a set of vows, a union, a sacrament? What is the cloud of souls witnessing your specific affirmation of monogamous love?
For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part.
What is the honeymoon, the union, the sex? When you’re 22, what is any of it but an awkward entry into a commitment you’ll never understand, one that is wholly un-understandable? At 22, who can say what it means to be one? Who understands the fusion of souls?
No...
June 20, 2017
My Repentance
It was not just any Sunday night. It was the Sunday after the verdict was read in the Philando Castile case, a case in which another black man was killed by a police officer with an itchy trigger finger.
Not Guilty.
The facts were the facts, and who am I to recount them here. (Follow this link for proper reporting on the trial of Jeronimo Yanez, the officer who killed Castile.) But facts being what they were, reporting being what it was, many were left asking these questions:
What is justice...
June 16, 2017
The Marriage of Competing Kingdoms
“Competing kingdoms will come,” the preachers should say on any wedding day. “Your need for sex, her need for connection, the Kingdom’s need for unity–these things can seem so at odds.” This is the sermon every bride and groom should hear, but I’ve never (not once) heard it, decorum and context being what they are these days. But this, I think, is the heart of the matter. Marriage is an exercise in recognizing competing kingdoms.
I want.
She wants.
Heaven wants. (Doesn’t it?)
There is the Ki...
June 14, 2017
June 14: The Day the Politicians Were Shot
The alt-right or vitriolic left.
The anger filling the spaces between.
“I’d like to punch him in the face,”
might be the most extreme iteration.
“You should be ashamed,”
might be the most docile.
Every thread of outrage pulled
with itching fingers leaves us
naked as cavemen and just as refined.
Look around.
Is anything any wonder?
“Once you see [anger and contempt] for what they are, the constant stream of human disasters that history and life bring before us can also be seen for wh...
June 12, 2017
Sacraments Within Sacraments Within Sacraments
On occasion, the boys and I head out into God’s first sacrament, the place he first made his grace known to men and women–nature. Our favorite among The First Sacramental places is Steel Creek, a short stretch of the Buffalo River with the best little swimming hole in all of America. (This is not hyperbolic.) After a day in the water, we walked upstream and were treated to witness a sacrament within The First Sacrament. We happened upon them just as the preacher invoked the name of the Father...
June 10, 2017
The Drunk Fare, The Science of Climate, and Barabbas (A Weekend Review)
The Weekend Review was a staple of my blog for a season, but my efforts to bring you the best stuff of the week every Saturday have gone the way of good intentions, or the dodo bird, or the tyrannosaurus. Intentions fail, I suppose. This week, I’m trying to revive those intentions. Why? It was a really good week for really good content.
LINKS
Who needs scientists when you have ideology? Who needs expertise when you have high-school bravado? This is the subtext of this week’s New York Times ar...
June 8, 2017
10 Ways to Make The Most of Time
1. In a podcast interview, I was asked what advice I might give the 25-year-old version of myself. “I guess I would have said, ‘self, take yourself less seriously.'” I suppose this is to say, I would have cautioned him (me?) to take himself (myself?) less seriously. (You follow?) Would that me have listened to the present me? Probably not. I already had the law and the prophets.
1a. This is a confession.
2. If the 15-year-older version of me comes riding into town on a horse-drawn time machin...
June 6, 2017
Justice and Mercy in the Disposable Marriage Era
1. This is the scripture du jour: “what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” It’s been the scripture of the decade, perhaps of the millennia, and it’s made its way into our collective consciousness. Thousands of bloggers cite it each week. Preachers spur you to action with it. I saw it on a tattoo a month ago, with a minor artistic variation on theme–act justli, love merci, and walk humbli. (It was, I think, the tattoed’s attempt to...