A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Random musings

  • Pedantry

    I don’t like to be that guy–the one who airs his grammar or usage pet peeves. But this one’s been bugging me for a while. It’s the use of “myself” in place of “me.” As in: “Let Jane, Bob, or myself know if you have any questions.” The practice seems rampant in corporate America and Read more

  • Stuff evangelical hipsters like

    The author of the blog (and book) Hipster Christianity asks: How many of these 50 books have you read? If you’ve read more than 20 of them, there is a good chance that you are a Christian with artistic or intellectual tendencies. If you’ve read more than 30 of them, you are most likely a Read more

  • The rise of the more-Catholic-than-thou Protestant

    This was a character who was (blessedly) unknown to me prior to the advent of the theo-blogosphere: the guy (and it’s almost invariably a guy) who is constantly berating his fellow Protestants for not being “catholic” enough. That is, not being in touch with the larger Church and the Great Tradition, being antinomian, relativistic, individualistic, Read more

  • Dear Pandora

    When I’m listening to your (otherwise great) Traditional Country station, I really don’t need to hear Joaquin Phoenix singing Johnny Cash tunes from the Walk the Line soundtrack. Just sayin’. Read more

  • Theological pet peeves

    When Christian writers do one or both of the following: 1. Posit a simplistic dichotomy between “Hebrew” (or “biblical”) and “Greek” thought. These days the former is invariably portrayed as earthy, holistic, and life-affirming, while the latter is otherworldly, dualistic, and sees matter as evil. (As an aside, I often wonder what Jews think when Read more

  • Spring fever

    I finally get what everybody was talking about when they said that Spring in DC is wonderful. I had the day off today and took the opportunity to wander a bit around the city. It’s about 80 degrees, low humidity, crystal blue sky, and it seems like every last bit of flora is in full, Read more

  • “A refuge from insignificance”

    For those for whom life means action, the world is a stage on which to enact their dreams. Over the past few hundred years, at least in Europe, religion has waned, but we have not become less obsessed with imprinting a human meaning on things. A thin secular idealism has become the dominant attitude to Read more

  • Confession

    The revivified American Gladiators is kind of awesome. Read more

  • Surprisingly apt search terms

    Sometimes bloggers will post lists of the wacky search terms that lead people to their blog. But this selection of mine from the last couple of days shows people…being led here looking for things that are actually discussed on this blog. How boring! presidential candidate quiz “skeptical of the skeptical environmentalist “where did the party Read more

  • D.C. = most walkable

    Lucky for me as I walk pretty much everywhere I go. I might take the Metro once or twice a week, but we’re lucky enough to live in a neighborhood where pretty much all the necessities (and several of the luxuries) of life are within a couple blocks’ distance. Of course, we pay for that Read more