7 Blasé Takes

Fani Williams, Overton's Window, Romans 13, the Bridge Fable, A Prayer, and a Great Taylor Ransom Clip

I do not know if I’m up for seven whole takes today, but I’m willing to give it a try, as long as I can be forgiven for including a bunch of fluff.

Photo by Kelly Visel on Unsplash

One

I did not mean to, but I did start listening to Megyn Kelly breaking down the Text Messages related to the court case of Fani Willis* yesterday. It was one of those occasions where you’re watching/listening to something on YouTube which then comes to an end and instead of enjoying a moment of silence to collect your own thoughts, YouTube picks something else at random and starts playing it before you can do anything to protect yourself. In this way, it was almost twenty minutes before I realized that I had been sucked in. Turns out these Text Messages are pretty exciting. I haven’t been following the case at all, except that I did watch that clip of Ms. Willis explaining to a church that Satan will come against you if you’re not careful, which is certainly true, though perhaps not in the way she is imagining.

What I liked was how, a while ago, we were told to please not concern ourselves with what private people do in their private bedrooms, but then, suddenly, the kinds of things that people heretofore have kept confined to their sleeping accommodations now get to happen in offices and the United States Capitol building and other kinds of public places without anyone being able to do anything about it. And then, instead of continuing to be allowed not to care, because they are a matter of public record, pundits and other kinds of people have to talk about them, both in tweets and long-form podcasts and articles.

Two

I quite liked this article I came across a day ago called “Overton’s Broken Window.” Boy is it ever shattered all over the floor. The writer says this:

The last two decades of political discourse has taken place in an intensifying pressure cooker which has rendered many peoples common-sense barometers all but useless. We must step out of this "2007 to present" Insta-pot in order to recalibrate to sanity. I think we sometimes forget how much religious, political, and social ground has been lost since the advent of the iPhone. We are constantly inundated with ideas and sentiments that frankly do not map to reality. A fresh perspective - or refreshed perspectives - are going to be necessary if we are going to maintain any connection to reality and our common human heritage. We must look backwards and learn the generational wisdom from those who observed the world as it really was.

Isn’t it fascinating and terrible that things like “connection to reality” and “common human heritage” would be so unusual. I think all this goes much further back than the iPhone, though that has certainly made things worse. I watched several old clips this week of Good Morning America in awe over the ability to send email, and a report of the very first debit card transaction (sorry for the dearth of links, going back and finding them all would take me hours).

What I’ve liked best about the last four years is finally having the veil pulled back and getting to see people admit what I’ve felt my whole life—this kind of world is unsustainable, crazy, and accelerating toward perdition at an alarming and uncomfortable rate.

Three

Like, one thing that I feel deeply sane about is the quiet snigger over people who say that we need a “serious cultural change” as this person did (maybe don’t click the link if you’re trying not to look at women not wearing enough). The piece is pretty good, except that she’s chatting away about “the right” and “the left” as if those are even meaningful categories. The “Left” should admit that porn isn’t good for young people, but the “Right” shouldn’t be so scolding. Meanwhile, the Overton window has jumped off a cliff and lies dead at the bottom of the abyss.

At this stage of the game, the pornified objectification of women isn’t something that can be shoved back into its bottle and put back on its shelf with all other bottles failing to hold insane ideas. There would have to be a deep and total acknowledgment that almost everything about our “culture” is so completely nuts that it cannot just be tweaked or even mended like there was only a crack in it. Like, take a gander at this tweet. It may be, to put it mildly, that we are beyond help in human terms.

Four

Besides looking forward to tucking into Abigail Shrier’s new book, I’m super excited for this book to come out. Apparently, Joe Rigney is a big Edwin Friedman fan. I listened to him on a podcast retelling the eye-popping Bridge story from Friedman’s Fables, but with the added comfort of the gospel, which Friedman wasn’t able to apprehend.

Basically, in case you haven’t heard of it, the Bridge Fable is about a man who suddenly figures out how to get on with his life, but just at the critical moment, when he is filled with enthusiasm and purpose, a stranger rushes up and sabotages him by handing him the end of the rope tied around his waist and then jumping off a bridge. I’ve read this short story to my children several times, and in every case, my offspring erupt in loud shouting as they suddenly gain insight into their own relationships. All of the Fables are disturbing, in a good way. But I’m excited to have the major missing element—God—added into the mix.

Five

We’re nearing the end of Romans in Morning Prayer, arriving upon one of the more contentious passages—not perhaps in previous eras, but certainly since the time of Covid—chapter 13. It’s not just that Paul orders the Christians in Rome to be subject to the governing authorities and pay their taxes and give honor and so forth, it also has the bit about loving your neighbor and love being the fulfillment of the Law. It’s like a full amount of 2020 Tweets, pressed down, shaken together, and poured out over a deeply confused, hysterical, and fractured world.

In an excessively winsome way, I think it’s kind of funny the way Paul describes what love is:

For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

But, cries Fani Willis, I was all about the love. Oh no, says Paul, you were not about the love. You (allegedly) coveted, committed adultery, and probably stole campaign money (is that what happened?—again, I have not been paying close attention) to have an illicit sexual relationship with someone on your payroll. So, um, you have not loved your neighbor as yourself, nor God either.

But, I guess I’ll still pay my taxes this year, if I can figure out what they are, because American governmental corruption can’t be that much worse than Roman Governmental Corruption.

Six

This seems like a really good moment to re-plunk this here:

Seven

One thing we need more of is this guy:

realtaylorransom

A post shared by @realtaylorransom

Have a nice day!

*EDITED so her name is correct. Sorry!