Take a Walk: 20 Year Review
This morning while I was listening to my top Spotify listens for 2022, Judah & the Lion’s song Take a Walk hit me in a special way. In the chorus it says: Let’s go take a walk downtown/ and act like we’re the heroes/ that we dreamed we’d be when we were young/ we can be the giants/ in the streets we learned to drive in/ and we’ll ride away into the sun Read more...
Believe. He Will Return.
A few years back I was walking through Opry Mills with Jennifer and the kids. It was early December, so the mall was decked out in all the trim and finish one would expect a palace to consumerism to have. As a Millennial, I’m three generations in to the sights and sounds of post WWII secular Christmas. It is the air I breath. It is the default. It comes and goes in my life expected, but also unnoticed, like July 4th and Halloween. Read more...
Dining with Bro-grammers
I don’t know what it’s like in other professions, but in software development there is some expectation of a meritocracy; those with the most ability should be in charge. The good programmers who develop stable, well-designed systems should be promoted and the less skilled developers should listen, follow, and learn. For me, at least, in university and my early career, this is exactly how things worked. The skilled programmers got the good projects, got opportunities to design new systems, and got to set the standards for others to follow. Read more...
Silver Slippers: The Book is Better than the Movie
One of the many luxuries of being able to do a large portion of my jobs from home, is that I get to be an active participant in the daily lives of my family. Recently my wife has started the practice of reading real chapter books aloud to the kids at lunch and before bed. Over the course of the last several months, I’ve had the opportunity of listening to “The Lion Witch and the Wardrobe”, “Because of Winn-Dixie”, and “The Wizard of Oz” read aloud by my wife and experienced for the first time by my children. Read more...
Be Pruned
So, show of hands, how many of y’all took on random hobbies in the last two years or so? Same, same. It all started with Jennifer getting a little pathos plant and two succulents. I took it upon myself to help those plants avoid the normal fate of plants in our house. I researched, I set a calendar reminder for watering, I even got a little grow light. (My neighbors are no doubt incredibly confused by the purple glow that comes from my office all winter long. Read more...
Sent out Ahead
Figuring out how to live out God’s call to make disciples and love our neighbors is something I think about often. In my little neighborhood I daily see the extremes of deep poverty and homelessness and the excesses of wealth and secular individualism. I know all of these people — the rich and the poor — are loved by God. All of these people need Christ’s church. It is for this reason that today’s Gospel reading makes me uncomfortable. Read more...
Father, forgive them.
“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” Who could truly understand what was happening? He wasn’t the savior they were expecting. He wasn’t saving them in the way they wanted. And, yet, even at that depth of evil, Jesus is eager to forgive, eager for us to return to his Father’s presence. He says, “Father, forgive” that we might boldly pray “Our Father who art in Heaven…” Read more...
Law, Gospel, and the Beatitudes
I love the lectionary. Not specifically a particular lectionary. (I’m not going to get into the debates of the one-year traditional lectionary versus the three-year cycle of the 20th century, etc.). But, I love the thematic presentation of Old and New Testament. Where else other than the lectionary are you going to find Jeremiah, David, and Jesus in conversation with each other? Where else can we so clearly see the same spirit and Word at work in Jeremiah and David? Read more...
Jesus, the fulfillment of all Scripture.
Wow. If ever there were a day in the lectionary well suited for a graduate of Vanderbilt Divinity today is it. Before I even put my Bible down reading today’s passages, snippets of lectures, and discussions started swirling in my head. The entire army of very online pontifications from Twitter and Facebook that seem to only spring up on MLK day and when tragedy arrives in our country came immediately to my mind. Read more...
Serverless on LocalStack
I’ve recently had occasion to start writing a series of services on the AWS stack using the Serverless Framework. Serverless is a great framework, but I really don’t like having to deploy stuff to AWS to test DynamoboDB streams, SQS queues, etc. That’s where LocalStack comes in. LocalStack lets you host an entire AWS ecosystem locally so you can test “all the things” without actually deploying anything. LocalStack works great, but I discovered there are a few undocumented things that you’ll need to know to get your stuff working correctly locally. Read more...
The Unearned Bread of Life
Not too long ago I met a man at the shelter who seemed out of place. When I arrived at the shelter before lunch, I saw a man sitting by himself directly in the middle of all the chaos of folk waiting for lunch. Outwardly, I could tell he had been on the streets for several days; his dark tan and dirty clothes gave that away. However, I could also tell by his dress and mannerisms that he had not been homeless long. Read more...
Pentecost: Spirit, Word, See
Today is the great feast of the Pentecost. Adorned in red, we speak of the fire of the Holy Spirit and celebrate the birth of Christ’s Holy Church. But, even amidst all the fire talk, I often wonder if we really understand what type of fire we’re playing with. At times, it would seem, we’re talking less about fire and more about a cute, fluffy bunny that makes us feel happy. Read more...
Twitter Mute Filters
Without explanation, above are the keywords, hashtags, and clients I’m blocking on Twitter. If a topic doesn’t apply to you and/or does nothing but make you anxious, stressed, and/or angry you can block it. If Twitter isn’t bringing you joy or edifying you, it ain’t worth it. No one deserves a space on your timeline!
Z Shell One-Year Update
I’ve been using Z Shell for over a year now and I’ve been very pleased with it. Honestly, I should have moved off macOS’s antiquated default Bash ages ago. Below is an update on where my .zshrc is sitting a while down the road. Oh My ZSH Plug-ins I keep the Oh My ZSH plug-ins pretty light. Partially because I want to keep startup times low and partially because I can’t remember the commands anyways. Read more...
Simple Keyboard KVM Switch
I recently replaced my iMac with an M1 Mac mini and did an entire rework of my desk setup. With the iMac gone, I was finally able to buy a proper 4k montior to share between my work laptop and my personal workstation. I was also able to upgrade my keyboard to a Varmilo Miya Pro and get a new mouse. Since I would be switching between my work and personal machines several times a day, I wanted a simple and reliable system to share external devices between my systems. Read more...
