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How Organizational Coverups Succeed. (And they do.) christianitytoday.activehosted.com/index.php
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Animals as partners.
I read this and think of the holy, surreal bond between me and Sherman. In which we both seem to minister to each other. Partners in a way that is deeper than words. cac.org/a-loving-… [W]e are meant to enjoy each other’s company as well as alleviate each other’s pain… . Kindness, compassion, loving respect on the part of the saints elicits from their creature-partners trust, caring, and love—which, in turn, increases the happiness of everyone… .”
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Friendship is the greatest of worldly goods.
Certainly to me it is the chief happiness of life.
If I had to give advice to a young man about a place to live, I think I should say: Sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends.
C. S. Lewis, 1935 letter
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Remembering a friend. rabbitroom.com/2021/08/a…
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Keep Growing
To reach new peaks: 1- Don’t expect constant, linear growth: be open to venturing down the mountain if it means greater learnings 2- Stretch the time horizon you optimize for: when you get good in the near-term, you will look good in the long-term 3- Never stop building your talent stack: be a chess player, not a chess piece www.productlessons.xyz/article/l…
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Tech Idioms Here are five commonly used idioms in tech: (1) Bikeshedding. To bikeshed is to devote way too much time and energy working on and optimizing trivial issues—that are often hypothetical future problems that don’t exist yet—instead of focusing on what’s actually important right now. (2) Yak Shaving. Yak shaving is to start working on one task that leads you to perform another, and results in a seemingly never ending queue of tasks, diverting you from the original goal. (3) Rubber Ducking. To rubber duck, or to rubber duck debug, is to explain your code or problem aloud in hopes that the process of describing it and hearing it aloud will help you diagnose your problem. Often times it does! (4) Bus Factor. A bus factor is a measure of the level of responsibility and knowledge a person or team holds. The lower the factor, the riskier it is if that person were to leave the team. (5) Dogfooding. To eat your own dog food, or to dogfood, is to have the team that made the product use the product themselves before releasing it to the public. levelup.gitconnected.com/demystify…
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“Attention is the most basic form of love.” austinkleon.com/2021/07/2…
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“I have fallen in love with a painting… I have felt the energy and life of the painting’s will; I have been held there, instructed. And the overall effect, the result of looking and looking into its brimming surface as long as I could look, is love, by which I mean a tenderness toward experience, of being held with an intimacy with the things of the world.” – Mark Doty
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”…Faction friendships are also fragile. They depend on an extraordinary degree of agreement and conformity. I’ve experienced this myself. Many of us have. Friendships built up through years of engagement in politics and activism vanished in the blink of a tweet. … You can’t fact-check, plead, or argue a person out of a conspiracy, because you’re trying to fact-check, plead, and argue them out of their community.”
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And even though modern therapeutic culture tells us to look inward, to create our own identity and validate ourselves, many leading thinkers (pre-eminently Charles Taylor) have shown that this is impossible, that we are irreducibly relational beings.
Loosen the links between your ideas and your identity.
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“bad faith readings”—interpreting a person’s words in the most uncharitable sense possible.
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This prayer comes at the end of Augustine’s famous de Trinitate (XV.51). “A Prayer for the Overthinker”
“Deliver me, my God, from much speaking which I suffer inwardly in my soul, which is so wretched in your sight and flies to your mercy for refuge. My thoughts are not silent even when my voice is. And of course, if I thought nothing but what is pleasing to you, I would not ask you to deliver me from this much speaking. But many of my thoughts are of the kind of which you know the thoughts of men that they are vain (Ps 94:11). Grant me not to consent to them, and if ever they delight me grant that I may reject them and not linger over them in a kind of doze. Let them not so prevail over me that any action of mine proceeds from them, but let my judgement at least be preserved from them, and my conscience, with you to preserve me. A wise man was speaking of you in his book which is now called Sirach as its proper name, and he said, We say many things and do not attain, and the sum of our words is, he is all things (Sir 43:27). So when we do attain to you, there will be an end to these many things which we say and do not attain, and you will remain one, yet all in all, and we shall say one thing praising you in unison, even ourselves being also made one in you.
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“The only interesting answers are those which destroy the questions.” - Susan Sontag
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Charles Spurgeon wrote: “Usually cheerful as we may be, we must at intervals be cast down. The strong are not always vigorous, the wise not always ready, the brave not always courageous, and the joyous not always happy.”
Spurgeon struggled with depression throughout his life. His honesty in addressing his own struggles are a testimony to his pastoral instincts and deep trust in the God who binds up the broken hearted (Psalm 147:3) and is our ever present help in trouble (Psalm 46:1). Spurgeon shared his experience so “that sadder men might know that one upon whom the sun has shown right joyously did not always walk in the light.”
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“At the end of all our striving and longing, we find a not a force—but a face.” -Michael Gerson’s powerful words on facing hopelessness and depression, and his relationship with God throughout. www.washingtonpost.com/religion/…
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Lord Jesus, let me know myself and know You, And desire nothing save only You. Let me hate myself and love You. Let me do everything for the sake of You. Let me humble myself and exalt You. Let me think of nothing except You. Let me die to myself and live in You. Let me accept whatever happens as from You. Let me banish self and follow You, And ever desire to follow You. Let me fly from myself and take refuge in You, That I may deserve to be defended by You. Let me fear for myself, let me fear You, And let me be among those who are chosen by You. Let me distrust myself and put my trust in You. Let me be willing to obey for the sake of You. Let me cling to nothing save only to You, And let me be poor because of You. Look upon me, that I may love You. Call me that I may see You, And for ever enjoy You.
Amen.
—St. Augustine of Hippo
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We have to try to cure our faults by attention and not by will. -Attention and Will, by Simone Weil (love this) rohandrape.net/ut/rttcc-…
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Pandemic Questions to Ponder One Year Later
What have you lost? What have you gained? What will you carry with you in post-pandemic life?
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“A lot of us think that we are our plans—that we have these plans for our lives (our career, etc.) and that we are chasing our plans. And in moments like this, when your plans are upended, you realize you’re more than your plans and that there’s a quieter self beneath your plans.” - David Brooks www.youtube.com/watch
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“Christians have, through their hope in God’s story of redemption for the world he created, a deep consolation that enables them to work with all their being and never be ultimately discouraged by the frustrating present reality of this world, in which thorns grow up when they are trying to coax up other things. We accept the fact that in this world our work will always fall short, just as we sinners always ‘fall short of the glory of God’ (Romans 3:23) because we know that our work in this life is not the final word.” -Tim Keller & Katherine Leary Alsdorf, Every Good Endeavor
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Displaying humility and charity in learning, writing, and engaging with alternative viewpoints.
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