Happy National Grammar Day!

March 4 is National Grammar Day! Hooray!

Unfortunately, I don’t have time to do a hilarious hagiography like I did last year, or much of anything really, being too busy correcting grammar for a living. So here’s the next best thing: What would a grammar holiday be without some rousing choruses of Schoolhouse Rock? Bet [...]

Giving up Self-Denial for Lent?

Today on a blog that discusses issues of spiritual abuse– the blog in question is directed to survivors of a high-control group that puts a lot of emphasis on finding God through physical suffering, righteous living, and other forms of legalism– a very interesting question was raised in this post:

If you purposely choose to practice [...]

Interview with

As you might have noticed, I haven’t had too much time for writing lately, being absurdly busy with work and life. But somewhere in the past few weeks, I did find time to sit down with an up-and-coming blogger known as Mr. Pond for a discussion on music, writing, faith, spiritual abuse, and many other [...]

Heavens! A St. Peter Joke with Good Theology!

Good heavens! Rev. Bosco Peters of Liturgy.co.nz has gone and found it. It’s a St. Peter joke (you know, this guy dies and goes to the pearly gates and he meets St. Peter and St. Peter says….) that actually has good theology. Well, for a St. Peter joke. Have a gander:

A man dies and goes [...]

By Any Other Name....

A while ago, I was paging through the books at a Christian bookstore when I came across one called 101 Reasons You Can Believe: Why the Christian Faith Makes Sense.  The author, Ralph O. Muncaster, presents an assortment of things that he believes point to the truth of Christianity.  Some were [...]

Friday Funnies

Because we all could use something funny this week:

1. Tax Advice

Failblog reports that the following appears on the IRS website:

Living in Chicago, I have to admit I’m not entirely surprised, but still… doesn’t this explain so much about our political system?

And in case you were wondering, yes, it’s totally real. [...]

“I Have a Sign”: Answering Spiritual Abusers According to Their Folly

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“Are you looking for a sign from God? This is it.” — seen on too many church signs

In the popular imagination, Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist “Church” probably deserve their status as the archetypal hateful ultra-fundamentalist spiritual abusers. (They’re the ones who popularized the infamous slogan, “God hates [anti-homosexual slur redacted]s.”) For reasons unfathomable [...]

Music Geekery: Other Things Being Unequal

Not long ago on the always interesting and uber-nerdy Language Log, Mark Liberman directed readers’ attention to a recent paper supposedly studying what gives music its emotional resonance (Daniel L. Bowling et al., “Major and minor music compared to excited and subdued speech“, Journal of the Acoustical [...]

Gaimanography

Here’s a little something for you fantasy fans. As you might have heard, because I can’t stop talking about it, I’m a fan of fantasy writer Neil Gaiman, author of books (such as Coraline or The Graveyard Book) that enchant children and give nightmares to adults–often from the same story.

***Overheard on Twitter:

@FakeAPStylebook If I write [...]

Concert with Carrie; Orchestration on Moody Radio

Lots of stuff is happening just since last week! Here’s some more news and updates for you:

My orchestration is finished, and the folks down at Moody seem to like it. You may recall from my previous post–if you read past the excitement of “Mick McGuire”– that it’s a hymn written by a student at MBI [...]