Hello again! Boy, am I glad to be able to post again! Still, the procrastination sets in again. I meant to get up early this morning and get a lot of things accomplished around here. I got a couple things done, for sure, but the whole “getting things done” thing is a lot harder when one is very tired and one has a four-year-old hanging around who is also very tired. How tired? Two meltdowns in Aldi tired. Yet she sings to herself snippets of songs and conversation between her toys and while playing games on the tablet, and I remember I’m going to be so sad when that all is just a memory.
Writing
I have been updating on Wordpress, though things have been so busy between Holy Week and the end of the school year, I haven’t posted much.
On the Substack side, there was a quick post when I saw I could post again here and also a “Personal Notes” update as a bonus to the wonderful souls who are my paid subscribers.
Listening
During the end of Holy Week, I ended up doing a fair amount of driving, and instead of listening to the music I usually do, I listened to some long podcasts, and even some series. It seems like I’m kind of hooked, and I’m sharing a few of them here:
Gospel Simplicity is a channel created by a young man named Austin Suggs. He was a student at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago when he started his Youtube Channel, and he’s very knowledgeable about theology, but he certainly has a gift in doing interviews. He’s had a number of Orthodox guests, and all of those interviews I listened to were quite good. Here is one with Fr. Andrew Damick that I remember enjoying a lot:
And, as long as I’ve mentioned Fr. Andrew, here’s a much more recent interview he did with Matthew Namee, talking about “crazy stories” of the characters who made up Orthodoxy in America a hundred years ago or so. (Talk about getting old - I met Matthew Namee once many, many years ago working at my old job, and at the time I think he was 21 or so. I wasn’t that much older, but there was enough of a difference in age that I thought of him as being quite young. We’ve exchanged messages now and again through his Orthodox History website, but this video is the first time I’ve seen him since that meeting and it was kind of shocking - he’s 40 and the salt-and-pepper hair really threw me for a loop! Seriously, where does the time go?)
I think I shared with all of you a video featuring three Mennonite men talking about their impressions of visiting an Orthodox service. They’ve done a couple more follow-ups, including this one:
It’s quite interesting because while the number of Amish is increasing, the number of Mennonites seems to be plummeting. They’ve had a good bit of discord going on between different factions of the Mennonite church, and I think there’s a good deal of chaos right now even trying to define what the Mennonite church stands for anymore. Getting back to the roots of the Anabaptist movement, though, I found this:
This is a special kind of creepy:
Bill Maher with Julian Lennon - There were interesting parts, but I think Maher was fairly unprepared for the chat, as there were basic things that Maher had no clue about. Yes, interesting things, but it would have been better at about half the length.
(here is where it’s 11pm, and I’m ready to fall asleep on the keyboard!)
(Update - I managed one more link before giving up for the night!)
Reading
Patrice Lewis, of the blog “Rural Revolution”, and her husband decided to take a “second honeymoon” to explore the US a bit, much like they did on the original one in 1990. She’s up to day five of the adventure, and all the entries are worth reading (and seeing the pictures), but this bit on the brand new “Once Upon a Time in America” museum in Kanab, Utah is absolutely extraordinary, and it’s worth checking out her blog entry about the place as well as her WND column about it.
There is so much that we don’t know about how the brain works; if the boy is breathing on his own, that in itself is a very good sign. (“Ghost Boy” by Martin Pistorius is a must-read.) Little Levi Wright ‘not good’ despite tot, 3, waking from coma after driving toy tractor into river: ‘We’re shattered’
A Shot in the Dark: The Untold Story of Korean Air Lines flight 007 | by Admiral Cloudberg
Obsessed with Our DNA: The Rise and Fall of 23andMe - The HighWire
Linux could be 3% of global desktops. What happened to Windows? | Ars Technica
This sounds a lot like someone coming out of the IBLP, though she doesn’t name the group her parents joined specifically.
Watching
About Anna Swan Bates, whose life may have been tragic, but seems like a very decent person who did her best to make the best out of a bad situation.
This guy is amazing - he cleans houses for free in exchange for putting the transformations on youtube. He kind of used it as advertising for his business, but I think the channel has gotten so popular that he makes enough from Youtube now to pay the bills. Most of his videos are of people’s houses, and I’ve been listening to them while cleaning, but there are a few more generally informational videos he’s done aside from his live videos, and this one was pretty good. He’s got a very Midwestern ethic, very dry humor, and he’s good at being empathetic to the people he’s helping without getting really emotional.
Music
The Elixir - (a 1633 poem by George Herbert)
Dolly Parton on the Johnny Carson Show, 1979 (what a year!)
Across the Lands
Laugh
Car Catches On Fire In Dodgers Parking Lot As 'We Didn't Start The Fire' Blasted By Stadium Organist
Elle Cordova - Inventions
Sooo true! (My life)
Learn
Saint Severus the Presbyter of Interocrea, Italy - Orthodox Church in America
Canadian Woman's New World Record Hits A Low Note For Guinness | HuffPost Weird News
When a Japanese artist travels to Europe
Events/Offers
The Touchstone Conference is scheduled to take place in September - tickets are now available, and early bird pricing runs until June 1.
Kids Bowl Free is running again -
Marcus Theaters is running a series of kids’ movies for $3 a ticket for certain showings. https://www.marcustheatres.com/marcus-specials/family-friendly-films/kids-dream-summer-film-series-2024
It’s good to be back! Thank you for being here! :)
There is so much interesting stuff here! It will take me a bit to get through it but I'll have to check some of it out more closely!