Alright … I’ve tried my best to recover from yesterday’s events (Forest’s annihilation), and I’ve dusted myself off for another round of fandom pain.

My all-time favorite description of religious experience:

"It seems to me that insofar as it is graspable, the divine draws [us] toward itself, for what is ungraspable is unhoped for and unsought. Yet one wonders at the ungraspable, and one desires more intensely the object of wonder, (1/3)

Who Laughs Last (feat. Kristen Stewart) Lord Huron, Kristen Stewart · Who Laughs Last · Song · 2025

Lord Huron’s new single wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but feels reminiscent of Vide Noir and shows all the hallmarks of another great album!

“You don't remember what I said,
but you'll remember what I did”

open.spotify.com/track/5K2KkZ...

Apparently GIPHY doesn’t work …

I’d like to set expectations … I’m terrible at banter for 2 reasons: (first) No one watched soccer growing up, so I’m just happy to meet someone who watches EPL, and (b) I end up looking like Will Ferrell from Kicking and Screaming.

That Bruno Fernandes volley was equal parts epic and satisfying 🤌🏼 #MUFC

Blessed Feast Day of St. Maximus the Confessor!

“The mind receives the end of its motion in truth, because truth defines the limits of the mind's essence, power, habit, and activity.”

— 𝘔𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘨𝘰𝘨𝘺 §V.370-375

The Holy Spirit directed me to take solace in St. Joseph the Betrothed. Unfamiliar with specifics, I discovered his feast day was Dec 31 for 2023.

Full disclosure: I found this depiction after my dad died suddenly Dec 31, 2022. During a moment of grief in Mar 2023, I heard the Holy Spirit whisper about Jesus’ grief after losing his earthly father …

–The wounding of estrangement
–The wounding of a return to an historic oppressor
–The wounding of finding means to support family in foreign land.
–The color scheme has struck me — why is most everything warm, but the Lily?
–what does the directional gaze of each person mean?

In general? Too many thoughts!

In concert with your reflections?
–The silence of Joseph within Scripture
–The silent years in Egypt
–The silence from parents who know they are entrusted with the Messiah
–The silence from the infant God
–The wound of leaving your homeland without telling your fam

Reflections: Favorite section was the importance of teleology within Maximian participation — creation is given identity with the Logos at the end. Would’ve liked to hear more on Maximus’ tripartite hallmarks and his use of virtue for the telos of theosis.

Loved how he described that we can then view the world as a theophany of God — the Logos embodies the world and is a new gift 🤌🏼

Creatures participate in God’s energy and not ousia, therefore participation is analogical

Boersma highlights that Maximus had no dissonance claiming that creation is paradoxically and simultaneously ex nihilo and ex Deo 😤

Hans Boersma described St. Maximus the Confessor’s Participationist theology as it relates to his panentheism. What can I say, this was exceptional on all fronts!

#sblaar #SBLAAR24

The Evangelical imagination of creation and sin seems to function on a hyper metaphysical dualism (ie Kierk’s IQD). American Evangelicals struggle with privatio boni and participation by extension.

Reflections: I’d be interested to hear commentary on any observation of Evangelical use of participation as it relates to sin — in my observation, this is where Evangelicalism truly mis-appropriates, and their system becomes fraught with inconsistencies …

Notes the Evangelical shift away from epistemics to metaphysics — Boersma seemed to jump in and attribute a mis-appropriation, collectively seem to note out of an interest to recover a particular kind of creationist account.

Andrew Davison shares a brief survey on the budding interest of Participation Metaphysics among Evangelicals. Highlights influence by the likes of the Inklings, Katherine Tanner, John Webster as a kind of Protestant retrieval.

#sblaar #SBLAAR24

Reflections: Would love to hear Lance riff on his thoughts regarding the aesthetic of wounding silence in Ivanka Demchuk’s Flight into Egypt

@lancelogic.bsky.social shared the roles played by “Silence” and “Wounding” within prayer and Iconography. Since Icons are devised to guide the participant to God and knowledge of God, “wounding silence” makes way for God’s silence and provides a call to response.

#SBLAAR #SBLAAR24

Reflections: would love to hear more on this from Courtney — the national identities of various Orthodox communities has intimidated me from further engagement as an “Other.”

Courtney brought in Florovsky’s personalism and desire for Patristic integration as way to aid Orthodox unity beyond Orientalism vs Slaviophilia (and other nationalistic identities supra-impressed on the adherent).

Courtney Haubert employed Florovsky to address ontological “Eastern-ness” — really “otherness” as an ontological ground in a vacuum.

#sblaar #SBLAAR24

Reflections: Sujit introduced Origen’s hierarchical structure of the law. Wish I could pick his brain on whether there’s symmetry with Origen’s hierarchy of the spiritual senses (Sensus Spiritualis) that would both inform the believer epistemically.

Favorite part was his discussion on the literal interpretation of Scripture as a gateway to Spiritual interpretation, ultimately leading to the anagogic.

@sujithomas.bsky.social shared reflections on Origen and Scripture. Particularly on the unity of Scripture and the presence of Christ within all Text as a means to argue against departing from the Mosaic Law in supersessionism.

#sblaar #SBLAAR24

Reflections:
— Kierk’s IQD metaphysics is fundamental to him being an Epiphanic philosopher … would be interested to know strongest difference between the skeptics (ie Nietzsche)

— Disappointed Bowen didn’t incorporate TSwift lyrics on reversals and Epiphanic motifs.

Bowen advocates that suspicion must be teleological, because critique must eventually be edifying (ie Works of Love).