Jonathan Simcoe

“How the scriptures look depends on what the human senses are capable of,” he says. “As our mind is gradually remade through this sustained effort, the shape of the scriptures begins to be remade, too, and it’s as if the beauty born of this more sacred perceptiveness grows as we grow.”

Everybody who is not hopped up about this … you are the Germans that looked the other way when Hitler was preparing to do what he was preparing to do. Unfortunately, I don’t see how you can see it any other way.

As I began, the words of the abolitionist William Wilberforce ran through my mind: “You may choose to look the other way but you can never again say you did not know.”[1] In 1789, filled with passion over the evil of slavery and an unflinching commitment to see it end, he had risen in the British Parliament and described in unwavering graphic

Often, in our doubt that we have a real story to tell, we hold something back, fearing that we don’t have anything else. And this can be a form of trickery. Surrendering that thing is a leap of faith that forces the story to attention, saying to it, in effect, “You have to do better than that, and now that I’ve denied you your trick, your

We decided we didn’t want to plant a 22- or 23-year-old who hasn’t spent a significant amount of time working in a church under someone else. We want to plant a 28-year-old guy, a 31-year-old guy, 36-year-old guy more than a 22-year-old who thinks he’s going to fix evangelicalism and has a dynamic preaching gift. I think that’s how you get in

But now the smartphone serves up infinite ideas: One completed task just spawns another in its place. Players are motivated to do specific things for extrinsic rewards rather than doing whatever they like for the sake of intrinsic pleasure, and knowing it will be valued.

That’s what the McCarthy southwest feels like — the world being named with true names. It’s a trope that could so so so easily fall on its face (could so easily (and perhaps does?) induce endless eye-rolling) but because he’s so committed to the conjuring, so fully invested in the tone, it works. That total investment in a mode of working is — to

The Grail scene is a useful illustration of how we navigate the world. And it’s a useful guide for anyone making anything that they hope will receive sustained attention. Just because your thing is the “true grail” of its kind doesn’t mean that your audience will “choose wisely.” Most won’t, and won’t even be capable of doing so.