Rachel Held Evans:

It was easier before, when the path was wide and straight.

But, truth be told, I was faking it. I was pretending that things that didn’t make sense made sense, that things that didn’t feel right felt right. To others, I appeared confident and in control, but faith felt as far away as a friend who has grown distant and cold.

Now every day is a risk … but the view is better, and, for the first time in a long time, I am fully engaged in my faith.

When asked which command was the greatest, Jesus said:

I take this to mean that God does not want us to check our brains in at the door. He demands our whole mind. That includes the part that asks questions, the part that thinks rationally. He wants our whole heart. That includes the part that hurts when people suffer and cries when he realizes he was part of the problem. We must ask the hard questions, use the brains he gave us to make sense of this world, and use the talents he gave us to change the parts of the world that make no sense.

Michael Wolfe:

Let’s take a hike on the coast from San Francisco to Los Angeles to visit out friends in Newport Beach…

via Marco Arment

Scot McKnight:

…twelve ways revivalism’s theories of conversion have shaped and permeated evangelicalism:

1. Conversion is equated with salvation
2. There is an emphasis on human choice and decision. It’s all about the will.
3. Conversion is seen as punctiliar, something that happens all at once, can be dated and marked and known.
4. Revivalism is ambivalent about the intellect and is often anti-intellectual.
5. Conversion becomes an individual transaction with God, apart from the faith community/church.
6. Revivalism is ambivalent about or even anti-sacramental. (Including baptism.)
7. For revivalism, conversion is easy and painless and certainly not costly. “Just accept Christ today.”
8. Among revivalists, evangelism is reduced to techniques.
9. Revivalism pushes that God has no grandchildren, but is ambivalent about second-generation Christian nurturance into conversion and faith.
10. Revivalism has at times struggled with connections between conversion, baptism and the Holy Spirit.
11. The church’s mission is to obtain conversions.
12. Revivalism focuses on the after-life with minimal reference and orientation to this world.

via @southern_bread

Greg Howard (no relation):

The vote to close schools felt predetermined. Once the human element was removed, it was the most rational thing to do. Of the eight voting trustees, the first five voted to pass the proposal. Upon hearing the fifth, there was an audible groan in the main chamber. Fighting back tears, parents began to pick up their weeping children and exit the room … parents, teachers and children left 3700 Ross either in silence, deflated or in the same tears they’ve been shedding for months.

The question just came up at work, do you use one “l” or two when you spell the past tense of cancel (canceled or cancelled)? It turns out both are valid, but which one is preferred?

Maeve Maddox at DailyWritingTips says:

The double l in cancelled is British usage; the single l is American usage… In American usage, the final l is doubled only when the stress falls on a syllable other than the first.

Where British usage calls for levelled, libelled, quarrelled, and travelled, American usage has leveled, libeled, quarreled, and traveled.

American usage agrees with British on annulled, controlled, patrolled, and extolled because the stress falls on the second syllable of these words.

Confused yet?

Maria Halkias:

Gone are the dollar and percent-off coupons, morning only sales, additional markdowns at the register and all the “gimmicks,” Johnson said. It will get rid of signs with promotional prices above the racks telling shoppers how much of the artificially inflated “full” prices they’re getting. To make things even more simple, prices will no longer end in 99 cents.

Now that sounds refreshing.

Megan Howard:

Henry has adjusted quite well to life on this earth — it’s his parents who are having difficulty adjusting to life with him. We love this little guy to bits, but we’re not always sure what to do with him. Henry is healthy, eating well, pooping up a storn, and only cries when he needs a diaper change or something to munch on.

I didn’t believe at love at first sight until January 10 at 2:25am when I first set eyes on my son.

Dave Winer:

It was all about corporations. On the one side is Hollywood and on the other side is Silicon Valley. That’s how news people think. They look for big rich entities that are facing off and make it an epic battle.

Spot on analysis. News has become entertainment. It’s almost like writing historical fiction where you take some facts and build a story around them. In order to sell the ads, you need to attract the people, so you create something that will get the people to watch. Find the facts and build a story around them.

The fact is that new legislation will give the federal government the power to take over your website at the first complaint of a copyright holder. No investigation, no due process, no proof. Just a compliant.

This isn’t tech startups vs movie studios, it’s the federal government vs our right to free speech. But that’s not the story news people want to tell.

Joe Bunting:

Through my college and post-college years, I experimented with cigars, pipes, and menthol cigarettes. (They’re not real cigarettes, right? They smell like mint.) But whenever someone offers me a real cigarette?

“Ewwwwww. Gross, no. I don’t smoke those things. Are you even a Christian?”