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Finished reading: A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul 📚 // I absolutely adore Everyman’s Library Editions. I have collected dozens of them and find they such a joy to read. Beautifully crafted with a built in bookmark. But I have to admit this does not make me a close student of classic literature. Nevertheless, on a recent trip to DC I picked up A Bend in the River because it was a discounted Everyman’s Library edition and I felt like I owed V.S. Naipaul another chance. I didn’t’t finish A House of Mr. Biswas was and so was determined to try again.

And I enjoyed A Bend in the River and had no trouble finishing it. It was a fascinating exploration of Africa, colonialism, immigration, and relationships, etc. I can’t say I have a deep insight into what makes this book Naipaul’s best or what sets it apart as a novel. But I am a little more knowledgeable about this author and his work and literature in general.

Going to do some more reading and see if I can’t learn more about this book and connect it to my reading.

Using the Nike Run Club app to train for a half marathon in October. Did intervals on Monday based on 5K pace. Probably a little fast at first but pretty accurate by the end. 🏃

Currently reading: A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul 📚 // bought this on a recent trip to Washington, DC. I adore the Everyman’s Library collection so when I saw this on discount I needed to add it to the bookshelf…

Football season is upon us! I updated my running gear to reflect this. 🏃

American UtopiaAmerican Utopia by David Byrne
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I was so excited the local library was open for walking in browsing that I visited and grabbed a bunch of books just for the enjoyment of being in the library again. This was one of the books I grabbed because I was curious what it was about. I still really have no idea. I should have started with the musical or film obviously. Because as a book it is… odd.

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Jesus Christ asked forgiveness for those who were nailing him to a cross. Do we think we have it tougher than that? Or will? If we were to give a seriously biblical and genuinely Christian answer to the question of how we might prepare for some future disaster, we would have to say: By doing what Christians always do. In good times or bad, Christians proclaim that Jesus is Lord and seek to love Him and love our neighbors as ourselves. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.

– Alan Jacobs

Epistemology is social. We decide what to believe by deciding who to believe. When we believe the wrong people, bad things happen. On race relations, for example, the wrong people have tremendous influence in academia, and this has spilled out into schools of education, corporate human resource departments, and elsewhere. I think that some (much?) of the loss of trust in news media and other important institutions is due to a general suspicion that the wrong people have achieved high status within those institutions. Therefore, I think that the problem of intellectual status inversion is worth trying to solve. Not by politicians, but by replacing academic credentialism and cronyism with a more rigorous process for evaluating intellectual quality.

– Arnold Kling

A Prayer of Confession

“God of wisdom and truth, you call us to listen and follow your word to us, but we confess that too often we only hear what we want to hear and see what we want to see. We look for answers that reinforce what we already believe and do and we don’t notice how Jesus loved those who were difficult to love, who were different, or on the margins. Jesus loved us with his whole life and invited us to have such a change of heart that we live that same love. Forgive our cautious love and our guarded hearts and give us the courage to follow in Christ’s footsteps. In his name, we pray. Amen.”