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The pity of God

Jun 21st, 2008 by Gideon Strauss

“And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”

(Jonah 4:11)

Posted in the story and its songs, a luta continua, city life | 1 Comment

Things I love - May 15th, 2007 version

Jun 15th, 2008 by Gideon Strauss

(For archival purposes.)

This is a working list of 50 things I love. Writing such lists is an exercise I often ask people to do in my workshops or classrooms, because (following the teaching of Steven Garber and Augustine of Hippo) I believe that it is in consideration of what we love that we come to know, most deeply, who we are and who we can become.

1. God.

2. My beloved wife, Angela.

3. My darling daughters, Tala and Hannah.

4. New City Church, churchplanting, and church in general.

5. My work.

6. The neocalvinist tradition, in the line of Abraham Kuyper.

7. Our family home on Locke Street, and the surrounding neighbourhood.

8. Cities, especially comfortable urban villages, boulevards, and old city piazzas. And, in particular, New York City.

9. When people have opportunities to work themselves out of poverty.

10. Novels of suspense.

11. Psalm 119:18.

12. The very first bits of both the Heidelberg Catechism and the Shorter Westminster Catechism.

13. The theory of the structure of reality first developed by Herman Dooyeweerd and Dirk Vollenhoven.

14. Coffee. Especially its fragrance, and the warmth of a cup in my hands, but certainly also its flavour and the slow exuberance it provokes.

15. Blundstone boots.

16. Stabilo Sensor pens.

17. Journals of opinion.

18. Moss-painted stone, the grain of polished wood, the colours of spices, the textures of woven wool and cotton.

19. My parents, my wife’s parents, and our siblings.

20. Cafés.

21. The quality of light in the hour before sunset in the spring, summer, and fall.

22. Libraries.

23. Piano music, especially solo piano, and especially if composed by Bach, Schubert, Beethoven, or Satie.

24. Radio, especially Wo’ Pop on KEXP, Sounds Eclectic on KCRW, and I Hear Music on CBC2.

25. Dinner and conversation with friends.

26. Solitude.

27. My calfskin ESV journaling Bible.

28. My index card hipsterPDA.

29. Brahms’s lullaby, sung in my mother tongue.

30. Business magazines.

31. Collaborating with far-off friends on joint projects.

32. My students.

33. Movies that ask big questions.

34. Baptisms.

35. The eucharist.

36. Jane Austen’s novels.

37. Shakespeare’s plays.

38. Short, short poems.

39. Well-crafted songs.

40. The paintings of Rembrandt, Vermeer, and a handful of others.

41. The colour red when it occurs in nature without human intervention.

42. Reading philosophy, in particular the presocratics, Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, and continental European philosophers of the early 20th century.

43. The church year, but especially Advent as our family celebrates it.

44. The New York Intellectuals of the 20th century.

45. The resistance against the Nazis, and especially the White Rose group.

46. Steven Garber and his Fabric of Faithfulness.

47. Calvin Seerveld and his Rainbows for the Fallen World.

48. Hiking through forests in fall and spring.

49. People who read the Great Books with respect and attention.

50. The story in the Bible, especially some of its key nodes (Genesis 1:1-2:3, Deuteronomy 6, Romans 8, Revelation 21), and the accompanying wisdom and apocalyptic poetry (in particular Job 38-39, Psalm 19, Proverbs 1-9, Isaiah 58 and 60).