Bear Fruit in Keeping with Repentance
The second Sunday of Advent is, for me, when things start to feel real. When Advent truly starts. In the first week, we’re still coming out of Thanksgiving, surprised we’re already in December, faced with blue after months of green, and thrown into remembering our place in the world, but not of it, as society begins feasting while we’re still reflecting and preparing. In some ways, I wish we’d add a fifth week of Advent and just spend two weeks on the first readings. Read more...
Updated Training Routine
Since my last post in October, I’ve made some slight modifications to my strength training routine. I’ve got a new lifting routine that I’d like to share.
Pray Always
I come to you this morning “fresh off the plane” from the 148th synod of the Diocese of Quincy. Due to weather conditions, our flight was delayed and we ended up taking an in-air detour through Michigan and Ohio to get safely home to Tennessee at around 10:30p last night. But, neither the airport, hours in a cramped plane, hoards of travelers, nor the stresses of travel could remove the joy, hope, and peace I received at our synod. Read more...
Strength Training Snack Routine
Since August of 2024 I’ve been on quite the health journey. I started walking on my desk treadmill that month and, starting January 2025, committed to hitting 50,000 steps per week. Since January, I’ve consistently exceeded my 50k steps and have had quite the physical transformation. I’ve lost at least 15 pounds and have seen my waist go down by a few inches. I have more energy, my joints hurt less, and — even with an incredibly difficult work situation — my depression and mood are under control. Read more...
Pliable Chickens
I’ve spent the last week reflecting on Jesus cooking for and feeding the disciples. While we often don’t think about it, cooking is deeply personal and domestic. As Fr. Dan explained to us last week, there is much love and care in cooking and feeding. Especially when we’re talking about family and friends. In cooking, we sacrifice our time and enjoyment so that we can focus on the nourishment, pleasure, and happiness of others. Read more...
Daily Supplements
For several months, I was taking this mixture of supplements daily. My goal in this mixture was to target imflamation, depression, and increase my energy and metabolism. I saw great results.
Health Plan Success
The last fifteen years have been a wild health ride for me. I entered my mid-20s at nearly 200lbs. Which, when you’re only 5'5" is a rather unhealthy place to be. Thankfuly, my early 20s found me fully immersed in anarcho-capitalism, LewRockwell.com, and — of course — Ron Paul. Radical libertarianism aside, LewRockwell.com in the late aughts was rife with posts and essays on the benefits of the various paleo diets. Read more...
Why do you Sleep?
Welcome to the climax of the Christian year. This service, much like Holy Week itself, is all over the place. Highs. Lows. Joy. Suffering. Light. Darkness. Everything we talk about all year long, comes to a head in this holiest of times. With such a long gospel reading today, there is much to preach on. In a hundred odd verses we have the entire ministry and person of Christ on display in high speed. Read more...
What is Sin?
The topic of sin is an interesting thing. On one hand I think your common person on the street would quickly answer that they know exactly what sin is. It’s something you’ve done that’s bad or maybe something that you’ve done that hurts another person. But, I think if you press most people to start defining what bad is and even when something crosses from good, to neutral, to bad; you’ll start to see how complex the topic of sin actually is. Read more...
Hope in Anxiety
Yesterday morning when I came out of my office, Rosemary asked me a very important question. Knowing that I was working on my sermon, she asked me, “Daddy, how do you write a sermon?” It’s an important question, because I think a lot of people have a certain idea about sermon preparation that’s actually a good bit different from what happens. (At least for me.) I’ll pull the curtain back a bit and fill you in on my process. Read more...
Error in Secure Object
Recently I’ve been working with secure data sharing in Snowflake. We’ve not yet shared our data using a normal private share to another Snowflake account, but I’ve tested everything. Using SIMULATED_DATA_SHARING_CONSUMER and setting the consumer id to my expected account, I was getting data back from the share and everything was working fine. Today, however, we got a request to share our data to a managed reader account. I created the account, logged in, copied the share into a database, and could see all of my secure views. Read more...
Analogue Mornings
While 2024 was a year of great things in ministry1 and my personal health2, it was also a year of a lot of stress and change in all areas of my life. Because of this — and, naturally, my deep sinful nature — many of my good morning habits fell to the way side. Though I had banished social media from my phone, set it to B&W, disabled recommended videos & shorts on YouTube, and quite a few other things, by the end of 2024 my mornings were rubish. Read more...
My Dream Minimalist Setup
As is pretty apparent, I’ve been thinking a lot about digitmal minimalism here lately.1 This morning on my walk, I pondered a little what my perfect device setup would be, and I think I’ve got it. Here’s what I want. An iPad mini with the Daylight DC1’s screen. An iPhone mini with the same screen, no app store (only Safari, iMessage, Apply Pay, Wallet, Mail, Calendar), and a single small camera. Read more...
