"The Music Keeps Getting Faster and Louder and Younger"

The Trip to Tanzania (don't read this post)

I think a bunch (most) of you know that I am going to Tanzania for a month this summer. If this is a new fact to you, or if this is a fact you don't particularly care about, or if you have any other reason at all, please feel free to skip this post. Because this is a post in which I ask for help. And I don't really like asking for help. I'm happier to have you skip this post and feel free of any sense of obligation or guilt than to read this post and then wonder if I'm secretly judging you for not helping me (I won't be). The only reason I'm writing this post is because multiple people asked me if I would be writing a support letter, and could they support my trip to Tanzania. The answer, in the typical sense, is no - I cannot get you charitable receipts in exchange for money given to a "sending organization," and I have no plans to send glowing prayer reports of the great "ministry work" I do while I'm gone. But the actual answer is ...

The ROM, The Earth & Procreation

Disclaimer: This post is intended to generate discussion and a sharing of many opinions. It is NOT intended to judge or condemn anyone's life choices. I had an unexpected moment at the ROM last month. C and I were listening to a presentation for kids on wildlife conservation (or rather, I was listening, and C was eagerly anticipating what live animal would come out next), when a statement caught my attention and still hasn't let go. For most of history, the earth could provide enough resources for the earth's human population. But today, our population is growing rapidly, increasing by 250 000 people every day... Forty years from now, it will require 2 Earths to provide sustainably for our survival as a human species. But we only have 1 Earth. 250 000 people. Every day. That is roughly twice the size of my hometown. In one day. So I did a little math. (First, I rounded down to 200 000, just in case the figures were inflated or failed to account for some sort o...

Simone Weil: On "Forms of the Implicit Love of God"

Simone Weil time again! One of the essays in Waiting for God is entitled "Forms of the Implicit Love of God." Her main argument is that before a soul has "direct contact" with God, there are three types of love that are implicitly the love of God, though they seem to have a different explicit object. That is, in loving X, you are really loving Y. (in this case, Y = God). As for the X of the equation, she lists: Love of neighbor Love of the beauty of the world Love of religious practices and a special sidebar to Friendship “Each has the virtue of a sacrament,” she writes. Each of these loves is something to be respected, honoured, and understood both symbolically and concretely. On each page of this essay, I found myself underlining profound, challenging, and thought-provoking words. There's so much to consider that I've gone back several times, mulling it over and wondering how my life would look if I truly believed even half of these thi...

* not with ink

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