The Winding Path

Happy Friday, Blue Roomies!

• At Pop Culture Pastors Hour, “Ted Talks” continue as Ed and I discuss themes in Ted Lasso season 4. Here’s this week’s conversation about episode 2, Curiouser and Curiouser. Join us live Mondays at 1:00 EDT, or anytime at the Pop Culture Pastors Hour page or in the podcast app of your choice.

• Have you read Theo of Golden? I’m still on a very long holds list at the library (and also trying to finish Les Miserables), but Ed discussed it with the lovely Don Meeks on Wednesday’s Pop Culture Pastors Hour. Here’s the replay.

• And here again are the Worship Resources to accompany Better Than Normal. And a great recent review of the book!

I highly recommend Julia Curlee’s beautiful and heartbreaking article in the Atlantic (gift link). She writes about her time as a high-level CIA analyst, including stints briefing President Trump and Vice President Pence. She was recently fired from the White House for being transgender.

This post from Bridget Young on Substack has garnered 1900 comments and counting.

I contributed one of those 1900 comments. No, none of my three kids has struggled with drug addiction, and of course I’m grateful, but it’s no point of pride. So many addictions start out as a means of self-medicating mental and emotional distress, and we’ve had plenty of that to contend with. It was eight years ago this fall that the bottom fell out of our “normal” and we’ve been on all kinds of roller coasters in the years since. But sure, no drug rehab, no jail. Depending on your theology, that’s either grace or dumb luck, and I support whichever way you want to look at it.

Thank you, Bridget, for naming this time of year as a tough one for many folks. Yes, one of our kids has made it through college, but it was a dreadful slog at times. Another one heads back to campus tomorrow, but it’s a different campus than the one where they matriculated with so much excitement a year ago.

It wasn’t a good fit. Perfectly true, though a sanitized version of the reality.