The Friday Update - JIP's 3

Happy Friday,

First we direct our attention; then our attention directs us. When we focus it on Christ, we’re transformed into his likeness. When we focus it elsewhere, much is lost. When we miss His glory, we will also miss our own.

Who Said It

The belief that the next generation is a collection of lazy, clueless, unmotivated ne’er-do-wells didn’t start with Millennials dissing ‘Zers or Boomers writing off ‘Xers. The one who said, “Young people are high-minded because they’ve not yet been humbled by life… They think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it” was Winston Churchill, Mark Twain, William Shakespeare, Aristotle (in the 4th century BC). And it’s unlikely he was the first. If the First Philosopher had an older brother, you can be sure he complained about his uppity punk brother who was too busy thinking to do any real work.

Beloit Updated

For two decades, Beloit College’s Tom McBride and Ron Nief published a Mindset List, highlighting things incoming freshmen were too young to have ever experienced (or have always taken for granted). In the spirit of their work, this fall’s freshmen: have always known a world of iPhones; were 8 when the Cubs broke the curse and won the World Series; were in 6th grade when COVID shut down the planet; were freshman in high school when ChatGPT started writing term papers; have never known a political world not dominated by Donald Trump; have never feared the Soviet Union but have always worried about climate change.

Overheard

1) The principal problem among scholars today is not pride but cowardice. We do not read Lewis and Bonhoeffer because they were the smartest of their age, but because they had the courage to speak up.

2) The Amish have difficult lives but very little depression.

3) One of the things you learn studying history is that few learn things studying history.

4) One hundred years ago, people were physically tired. Today, more are emotionally tired.

5) AI will make expertise ubiquitous. What will be in short supply is wisdom and holy living.

6) Substituting politics for religion does not end well.

7) The opposite of love is not hate but self-protection.

Without Comment

1) Americans' satisfaction with the quality of K-12 education has fallen to a 27-year low.

2) This UCLA and USC study notes a 25% spike in personal bankruptcies three years after a state introduces online sports betting.

3) Cleopatra lived nearer to the iPhone launch than to the completion of the Great Pyramid.

4) According to this MIT study, lies “diffuse significantly farther, faster, deeper and more broadly than the truth, in all categories of information and in many cases by an order of magnitude.”

5) On an average day, 1-in-10 US young people have no in-person contact.

RIP

Annie Dillard, who spent a lifetime showing her readers wonder in the mundane, died last week at the age of 81. Among her many memorable lines is, "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."

We’re Alike

I asked what drained you. Those responding either copied each other’s work or were all depleted by the same stuff: regret, procrastination, unfinished work, conflict, and sin. (Note: absent from every list was hard work.) 

J.I.P’s 3

J.I. Packer suggested we start each day rehearsing several truths: 1) God is my Father; 2) Heaven is my home; and 3) every day I'm one day nearer.

WOTW

Honorable mention goes to Navier–Stokes (which made a recent splash after OpenAI reported its agents solved the famously difficult mathematics problem), and agent swarm (the story I read said roughly 10,000 AI agents worked together on the problem — apparently without first spending three days trying to schedule the meeting). Full honors go to fabulist: a literary-sounding way of calling someone a liar. It’s the title of a biography of George Santos and a frequent descriptor of the late Jason Arday. You should listen carefully the next time you think someone is saying, “you’re fabulous.” They may be saying, “you fabulist.”

Quotes Worth Requoting

1) “The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.” — James Baldwin

2) “The Christian vocation is to be in prayer, in the Spirit, at the place the world is in pain.” — N.T. Wright

3) “Liberal relativism has its roots in the natural right tradition of tolerance … but in itself it is a seminary of intolerance.” — Leo Strauss

4) “Video games are to the 21st century what movies were to the 20th century, and novels were to the 19th century.” — Hans Ulrich Obrist 

Resources

Click here to watch Lakelight’s event with Dr. Warren Kinghorn.  

Closing Prayer

"O Lord my God, my Light, my Wealth, and my Salvation, kindle in my heart a longing for that city where you are the everlasting light, and where your

saints will hunger no more, nor thirst anymore. There shall be no night, and no need of sun or moon, for you yourself will be their light, and they will reign with you forever. O lead me, Lord, through the changes of this present world into that blessed dwelling, where I shall see you face to face, and rest in the joy of your presence. Amen.” (Augustine - 354-430)

P.S.

 If TFU has become part of your Friday rhythm—and you’d like to help us out—then send it to a friend. Preferably one who reads. But we’re trying to be hospitable.