The Friday Update - Literally

Happy Friday,

In a world of hurry, God invites stillness. Not inactivity. But a quiet that fosters clarity and promotes rest. As you head into the weekend, may calm and slow prevail over noisy and hurried.

Quotes Worth Requoting

1) “Tolerance will reach such a level that intelligent people will be banned from thinking so as not to offend the imbeciles.” — Dostoyevsky

2) “The only clue to what man can do, is what man has done.” — R. G. Collingwood, (cited as the last line in the recently released film, Nuremberg).

3) "It is easy for me to imagine that the next great division of the world will be between people who wish to live as creatures and people who wish to live as machines." — Wendell Berry

4) "A monkey is a machine which preserves genes up trees." — Richard Dawkins

5) "'A monkey is a machine which preserves genes up trees' is a good candidate for the most unintentionally funny line ever written'" — Paul Kingsnorth

6) "Efficiency is a fact and justice is a slogan." — Jacques Ellul, (slyly)

Planes

I used to be depressed that no one read books on flights anymore. Now I’m depressed that no one opens their shades because a dark cabin makes it easier to see the movie their watching. Remember Wall-E—the Pixar film featuring people who stared at screens and binged on sugar? And remember that we dismissed the film as being too dystopic. (While I’m griping about travel, I’m not thrilled that flights out of O’Hare taxi to Peoria for take-offs and landings). 

Ongoing Fallout from the Tower of B

Some words confuse more often than clarify. Take literally. It can literally mean not figurative, or it can be an intensifier – e.g., “I literally died laughing.” Which means it can literally mean literally or not literally. I suspect literally half the people using literally literally have no idea what it literally literally means). Quantum is also problematic. Many think a “quantum leap” = HUGE. When quantum literally means the smallest unit possible. And then there is liberal. Which some equate with progressive and others with individual-rights, free-markets and limited-government. (And that is before you fold in liberal parties. In Australia, the Liberal Party are the moderates).

WOTW

Honorable mention goes to slopper (those who take AI too seriously and use it too much), THE 80/20 Rule (which to Gen A men use when claiming that 80% of Gen A women will only date a “top 20% guy),” Orthobros (the young men joining the Orthodox church) and Whamageddon, a game centered on avoiding hearing “Last Christmas” by Wham!). Full honors go to wistful agnostics (the smart, a-religious, upper middle-class Westerners who: 1) affirm that New Atheism has died; and 2) who imply that they’d like to believe but as of yet do not. Think: Douglas Murray, Jordan Peterson, Tom Holland, et. al.). BTW: 1) this is your last chance to submit a nomination for WOTY; and 2) I have been playing Whamageddon for years without knowing it was a thing.

More Words about Words

This seems a good place to note: 1) Jesus’s first word following his 40 days in the wilderness was “repent”; 2) among the words I expect to see more in ‘26 are: digital border; agentic AI, climate retreat, population crunch and re-enchantment; 3) and the word most often used to describe Jesus's emotional state is compassionate.

TLDR

There is much in Much Ado About Marriage worth pondering: 1) the % of 12^th grade girls hoping to eventually marry is down from 83% in ‘93 to 61% today; 2) although surveys say otherwise, many young women believe the happiest people are “married men and single women;” and 3) while young female Harris voters ranked having children at the bottom of their priorities, young Trump-voting men ranked it highest.

Clean Up

1) There was confusion about last week’s closing T-day prayer, attributed to Robert Hunt. He died in 1608, but the first T-day was in 1621. Was this another Friday Update miss? No. Hunt wrote the prayer in 1607. It was recited in 1621;

2) Also, more than a few challenged the claim that Foxe’s Book of Martyrs was the 2^nd most read book (after the Bible) in the 16^th century. Some were sure Pilgrim’s Progress was #2. Others thought it was The Imitation of Christ. I was citing a lecturer I heard at this year’s Evangelical Theological Society meeting. But, he may have been wrong. Like several other great theological conundrums – e.g., did Adam and Eve have belly buttons? – experts appear to disagree. I stand by the gist of my comment – many used to think about (and value) martyrdom. Far fewer give it much thought today.

Everyone Wins When…

Selfless people are often portrayed as suckers. But those who volunteer, donate and regularly “engage in acts of service,” are among the most contented people I know. Everyone wins when you serve, starting with you. If service had an ad campaign, it might read: Self-Sacrifice — you were made for this. 

T-Day Redux

1) Though T-Day is behind us, we’re wise to keep cultivating gratitude. Stop now and list five things you’re thankful for.

2) I believe this Yuval Levin piece—written last year—remains worthy or your time.  

Without Comment

1) Per this report, which measures “the sinfulness of cities,” Las Vegas is, unsurprisingly, the most sinful city in the US. Vegas is followed by Houston, LA and Philly. Chicago is 12th.

2) Globally, close to 250K more children under 5 are expected to die in ’25 than in ’24. The spike is believed to be caused by a decline in aid and an increase in global conflict.

3) Per this WSJ piece, only 39% of 1^st year students at UC San Diego could correctly round 374,518 to the nearest hundred — and 900 needed rudimentary math classes.

Resources

Click here for last week’s sermon on Revelation. It covers chapters 8 and 9, which are deep, dark, dense and important!

Closing Prayer

“O Lord, we bring before you the distress and dangers of peoples and nations, the pleas of the imprisoned and the captive, the sorrows of the grief-stricken, the needs of the refugees, the importance of the weak, the weariness of the despondent, and the diminishments of the aging. O Lord, stay close to all of them, Amen.” (Anselm, 1033-1109)