Plugged Back In... Things I've Missed and Things I've Written

According to Dr. Google, the answer to "When does Lent finish?" is as follows...

For Western churches the 40-day period of Lent ends on Holy Saturday (March 31), the day before Easter. 

But the liturgical season of Lent ends two days earlier on Holy Thursday (March 29). 

For Eastern churches it ends on the Friday before Palm Sunday.

Good enough...

So I went ahead and plugged back in to social media this morning.

I did enjoy the quiet of a life spent without THE SHOUTING OF SOCIAL MEDIA. But soon after logging back on, I found this little gem.

And with that, all of my lamenting about spending too much time on social media evaporated. Every second is worth it now.

Anyway...

I did manage to blow the dust off the blog over Lent, which has been a good thing. Because my readership has been between two and three people these past few weeks, I have felt liberated to just post whatever is on my mind. Hence the label applied to most of these posts: "stupid stuff."

Here, then, is a list of my Lenten posts, starting with the oldest....

• "Decluttering for Lent... Again (and Again)": "if Lent is a time to reflect and reassess, it is probably worth limiting the distractions and taking stock of what really matters. Will lessons be learned this time? Heck no. But that's why Lent happens every year."
• "Push-Up! Into New Habits": "Over the weekend, Kate and I along with some friends did the Think Pink Push-Up Showdown. . . . [A] good cause and a fun event...that I was taking a tiny bit too seriously. But that's a story for another day. For now, let me explain why I was particularly eager to volunteer for this event--and to volunteer my wife too."
• "Billy Graham and Christian Athletes, from Gil Dodds to Louis Zamperini": "In the coming days and weeks, there will be no shortage of tributes and commentaries on [Billy Graham's] significance, influence, and legacy. Many of these will be written by Very Qualified People. I am not, by any measure, one of those people. And yet, here I go."
• "A Russian Curler Got Caught Doping And I Guess We Shouldn't Really Be Surprised": "[It's] hard for me to see PED use suddenly coming to an end. The stakes are high in elite sports. And the competition is separated by razor-thin margins. Moral pronouncements about keeping sports "clean" might sound nice. But the reality is that the need to find an edge--even in curling--will will compel athletes to accept the risk." 
• "Pondering Podcasts": "I could never get a measure on how much value [podcasting] brought into my circles. Maybe measuring value in something like this isn't the point--it's more having had the opportunity to connect with other people, to engage with their work, and to grow as a result. Who knows..."
• "I Like The Quiet of a Lenten Social Media Fast, But I Miss The Stories About Calvinist Dogs"
• "Sacred Guns": "[The] fact is that for many (many) people in the USA, guns are sacred objects. Their power comes not only from an authority granted through the constitution and affirmed by the highest court, but also through the actual firing of the weapon itself."  
• "GPS Is Watching You": "[Once] I started running with a GPS watch, my 7 mile loops suddenly shrunk to 6.5. And my "easy pace" of 7:00 minutes per mile suddenly became far less easy. All of this is to say, GPS is watching me..."
• "A New Look, Kinda": "Pretty much from the minute I started writing here, I knew that the design would need to change. Very Blogspotty. Very 2010. Fortunately, Blogger makes it easy. Find a design, select it, adjust here and there and... I think that this is a slightly better look than what I had before."
• "Another 'Grades Are a Barrier To Learning' Post": "Chasing after grades is a sort of intellectual idolatry. It elevates random numbers and letters to sacred status, and forces a deadening loyalty to this system. It's a system that produces anxiety and unrest for everyone involved. In contrast, real learning inspires, engages, and liberates. Every professor got into this business because of their deep love of a particular subject. This is what we want to share with our students."
• "Shame and Typos": "I wrote a book. It had an argument. A good argument. But it had a typo too (yep, just one). So the argument doesn't matter. Because all any reviewer has to do is say, 'And on Page 73...' Then end. Shame and irrelevance await. I shall forever wear the Scarlet T."
• "My Take On Bannister's 'Miracle' on the Track": "When a friend texted me Roger Bannister's obituary, I knew that I had to write something. He's one of those names that transcends his sport. Indeed, Bannister's breaking of the four-minute barrier wasn't just important for track fans. His name and accomplishment has become an emblem for confronting and overcoming the impossible."
• "Snow, The Road, and Trout... It'll Make Sense... Kinda": "[The Road] is a novel about absence, about what a world looks like when there is literally nothing but ash. No culture, no color, no order, no life, no divinity, no morality. Just a father and son who commit themselves to being "keepers of the light."
• "Meanwhile in Pennsylvania": "Via Weather.com... 'More than seven weeks ago, Punxsutawney Phil emerged from the ground and predicted six more weeks of winter. . . . That six-week period has passed, and it's still cold. In eastern Pennsylvania, authorities in Monroe County are tired of waiting for spring's arrival, so they've issued a warrant for the groundhog's arrest on charges of what they called deception.'"
• "Anchors Away": "As Easter draws near, and with a semester in France in my rear view, I have been thinking more about my anchors. Specifically, social media. I have lamented my unhealthy relationship to this attention-harvesting beast many, many times before. And here I do it again. The silence of my life is welcome and necessary. I find that the news is less anxiety-inducing. I also find that I have plenty of opportunities to connect with friends, only now, in person."

I hope to continue blogging through the year, so brace yourself for plenty more "stupid stuff."