Here’s the deal:

1. We live in a time defined by our ever-increasing desire (and ability) to engineer and control every single aspect of our lives.

2. The good life is inherently unable to be engineered, purchased, predicted, or controlled.

3. Because our increasing pursuit and attainment of control is not yielding a better life, we grow increasingly enraged at the incongruity.

In his book The Uncontrollability of the World, Hartmut Rosa writes about “resonance,” which he has a whole other book about on its own. To oversimplify it, “resonance” is what we might call “the good life.”

To achieve resonance with the world is to resound with the world, to feel in tune with our existence. You might even call it “shalom,” at least on a personal level.

Rosa writes about resonance:

…resonance cannot be manufactured or engineered…..

We can never predict whether or not resonance will transpire and, if it does, how long it will last. Resonance is inherently uncontrollable. Just as with falling asleep, the harder we try to make it happen, the less we succeed.

It is a peculiar characteristic of resonance that it can neither be forced nor prevented with absolute certainty….

The uncontrollability of resonance further means that it cannot be accumulated, saved, or instrumentally enhanced…

Uncontrollability implies, moreover, that we cannot fight or compete for resonance….

We purchase commodities (cruises, safaris) and hope to experience resonance with nature, but while the former can be guaranteed, the latter cannot, and may even become more unlikely the more we strive to engineer it.

Okay great, so resonance is inherently uncontrollable and unachievable by any sort of striving, which is part of what makes it so great.

So here’s the punchline from Rosa (bolding mine):

My sociological theory…is that modernity is culturally geared and, given how its institutions are designed, structurally driven toward making the world calculable, manageable, predictable, and controllable in every possible respect. Yet resonance cannot be made controllable through scientific knowledge, technical mastery, political management, economic efficiency, and so on. That is the great aggravation inherent in this social formation, and its essential contradiction, which produces ever new waves of enraged citizens.

So, I think we’re in a bit of a situation, as I described above:

1. We live in a time defined by our ever-increasing desire (and ability) to engineer and control every single aspect of our lives.

2. The good life is inherently unable to be engineered, purchased, predicted, or controlled.

3. Because our increasing pursuit and attainment of control is not yielding a better life, we grow increasingly enraged at the incongruity.

Every god we grasp disintegrates in our hands because the one, true God cannot live in submission to us, be earned, or achieved.

The good life, resonance, shalom, requires us to open our hands and receive the grace of God in Christ.

It’s hard to pinpoint what I love most about Jerry Bridges, so I’ll highlight two items.

First, Jerry Bridges clearly communicates complex truths in simple ways so that many may come to understand them. He takes big theological concepts, some of the deepest truths about God, and makes them accessible for everyone. I try hard to do this myself, so I appreciate it greatly.

Second, Jerry Bridges is widely respected by Christians across denomination and theological perspectives. I’m sure he has his detractors, but best as I can tell, he has earned wide respect from all kinds of Christians. I am always grateful to see Christians whose dearly held doctrinal positions don’t prevent them from serving people who may think differently.

Earlier this summer I finished Trusting God. I am always comforted by the sovereignty of God amid the good and the bad I come across in my life, and Bridges brought the beauty of God’s sovereignty to bear afresh for me. So, I wanted to share some of my favorite quotes with you. Here are 10 reminders about the sovereignty of God from Jerry Bridges:

1. Discipline for Our Good

God disciplines us for our good. There is no agonizing by God, no hoping He has made the right decision, no wondering what is really best for us. God makes no mistakes. He knows infallibly with infinite wisdom what combination of good and bad circumstances will bring us more and more into sharing His holiness. He never puts too much of the “salt” of adversity into the recipe of our lives. His blending of adversity and blessing is always exactly right for us.

2. God’s Wisdom, Satan’s Affliction

Satan was given permission to afflict Paul with a thorn in the flesh to torment him. Satan probably thought he would thereby nullify the effectiveness of Paul’s ministry. Instead, he succeeded only in putting Paul in the circumstance where Paul learned experientially the sufficiency of God’s grace and that His strength is made perfect in our weakness (see 2 Corinthians 12:9). Think of how many thousands of believers down through the centuries have found God’s grace to be sufficient for them through meditating on God’s words to Paul at that time. God’s wisdom, then, is greater than the wisdom of any of our adversaries, whether they be other people or the Devil himself. Therefore, we should not fear what they seek to do, or even succeed in doing to us. God is just as much at work in those “things” as He is in the adversities of sickness, death, financial reversal, and ravages of nature.

3. Our Discipline Is Necessary

God disciplines us with reluctance, though He does it faithfully. He does not delight in our adversities, but He will not spare us that which we need to grow more and more into the likeness of His Son. It is our imperfect spiritual condition that makes discipline necessary.

4. Compassion Amid Affliction

Even the grief that He Himself brings into our lives is tempered with His compassion. “Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love” (Lamentations 3:32). The assurance here is that God will show compassion. It is not enough to say that He is compassionate, but He will show compassion. That is, even the fires of affliction will be tempered by His compassion, which arises out of His unfailing love. Our afflictions are always accompanied with the compassion and consolation of God.

5. God Loves Us as He Made Us

If I have difficulty accepting myself the way God made me, then I have a controversy with God.

….

The eternal God who is infinite in His wisdom and perfect in His love personally made you and me. He gave you the body, the mental abilities, and the basic personality you have because that is the way He wanted you to be. And He wanted you to be just that way because He loves you and wants to glorify Himself through you.

….

God not only created us as He intended us to be, He also sovereignly determines how long we live. This in itself is a glorious truth. Along with David, our times are in His hands. As one line from a song says, “Till He bid, I cannot die.”

6. Godly Efforts, Godly Acceptance

The realization that God has planned our days for us should not lead us to a fatalistic acceptance of the status quo. If we have an opportunity to improve our situation in a way that will honor God, we should do so. Even to believing slaves Paul wrote, “If you can gain your freedom, do so” (1 Corinthians 7:21). But immediately before that statement Paul had written, “Were you a slave when you were called? Don’t let it trouble you.” There has to be in our lives a delicate balance between godly efforts to improve our situation and godly acceptance of those situations that cannot be changed by us.

7. God’s Plan Includes Our Foolishness

We do have a responsibility to make wise decisions or to discover the will of God, whichever term we may prefer to use. But God’s plan for us is not contingent upon our decisions. God’s plan is not contingent at all. God’s plan is sovereign. It includes our foolish decisions as well as our wise ones.

8. Peering Over God’s Shoulder

God’s guidance is almost always step-by-step; He does not show us our life’s plan all at once. Sometimes our anxiousness to know the will of God comes from a desire to “peer over God’s shoulder” to see what His plan is. What we need to do is learn to trust Him to guide us.

9. Profit From Discipline

We shrink from the rod of God’s discipline instead of seeking to profit from it. We are more desirous of relief from the adversity than we are of its profit unto holiness. But as we look to God to use His discipline in our lives, we may be sure it will in due time produce “a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11).

10. Trusting God in All Times

God makes the good times as well as the bad times. In adversity we tend to doubt God’s fatherly care, but in prosperity we tend to forget it. If we are to trust God, we must acknowledge our dependence upon Him at all times, good times as well as bad times.

….

A mark of Christian maturity is to continually trust the Lord in the minutiae of daily life. If we learn to trust God in the minor adversities, we will be better prepared to trust Him in the major ones.

I hope these truths about the sovereignty of God comfort you as they have comforted me. Snag Trusting God if you want a whole book full of these reminders.

For anyone who knows me this likely does not come as any kind of shock—perhaps if you know me, you’ve made such an accusation!

I own these accusations, and I think—by the grace of God—this is an area in which I have grown in the last decade or so. I have shed some significant portion of my critical spirit in favor of more grace. I think most people who know me today and also knew me in 2016 would say I am far less critical today than I was then.

Of course this doesn’t mean I’m no longer critical at all—I definitely am—I just wield critique a bit less recklessly and frequently than I did before. I try to aim my critiques toward constructive change. I still have plenty of room to grow, but according to a handful of people close to me, I have made progress in this area.

I can’t point to any single reason I’ve become less critical over the years. Surely the Holy Spirit has helped, convicting my heart in times of Bible reading and prayer (and through friends). Some of my growth is probably attributable to general maturity—as one ages he tends to get less fiery, I think. And no small portion of it can likely be credited to becoming the father of two young girls in the last six years. I would say being a girl dad has softened me more than just about anything—the Holy Spirit has certainly used this in his molding of my heart.

But I think there’s something about critical people that non-critical people may not know. Something about these critical people that doesn’t excuse their sinful criticism, but may help provide some context for it.

A lot of people like me, who are quick to critique and be critical of others, are firstly and most harshly critical of themselves.

My Self-Critical Spirit

I hold myself to an unrealistically high standard in too many respects, far too often. And I’m hard on myself when I come up short of those unrealistic expectations, in whatever sphere they may be.

For instance last year around this time I began to try to lose some weight, which I needed and wanted to do. My goal was to lose something like 30 pounds between my August annual physical and a weigh-in appointment I scheduled with my physician in February, an appointment I asked to set just to keep myself accountable.

In those six months, I lost something like 27 pounds, give or take. Not bad! I felt better, fit into my clothes better, and was overall a more healthy person.

Oh, but I was so mad at myself. I showed up to that February check-in totally defeated and of the mind that I may as well have not even tried—which, of course, isn’t true. But it took me weeks to come to terms with the fact that I had made great progress despite not meeting my arbitrary goal, and that I could continue to do the hard work of getting fit even once the check-in had passed.

This is just one example of how I hold myself to a standard, realistic or not, and beat myself up about it when I don’t meet it, no matter how much good I managed to do in the process.

In Slow Productivity Cal Newport writes:

Obsession requires you to get lost in your head, convinced that you can do just a little bit better given some more time. Greatness requires the ability to subsequently pull yourself out of your self-critical reverie before it’s too late.

I am obsessed with succeeding in the areas of life most important to me, and it can be difficult for me to pull myself out of my self-critical spiral before it’s too late, and I lose the motivation to keep improving.

This is true in work. This is true in attempts at fitness. This is true in my writing. This is true in discipleship, unfortunately!

G. K. Chesterton once quipped, while critiquing another, “No reader can accuse me here of trying to make a fool of him; I am the fool of the story, and no rebel shall hurl me from my throne!”1

I can still be too critical of others, even as I grow in grace, and I can still be far too critical of myself, too.

If you find yourself in a similar state, let me briefly encourage you with truths that have encouraged me.

Gospel Truths for the Critical Spirit, of Self or Otherwise

Before you go, here are five gospel truths I try to preach to myself when I feel overcome with a critical spirit, whether that critical spirit is directed at my own shortcomings or another’s.

1. God’s judgment of me outranks my own.

“It is of little importance to me that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I don’t even judge myself. For I am not conscious of anything against myself, but I am not justified by this. It is the Lord who judges me.”
1 Corinthians 4:3-4

“This is how we will know that we belong to the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows all things.”
1 John 3:19-20

2. My standing rests on Christ’s performance, not my performance.

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.”
Romans 8:1

“He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
2 Corinthians 5:21

“More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung, so that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ—the righteousness from God based on faith.”
Philippians 3:8-9

3. God is gentler and more gracious with me than I am of myself.

“As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him. For he knows what we are made of, remembering that we are dust.”
Psalm 103:13-14

“He will not break a bruised reed, and he will not put out a smoldering wick; he will faithfully bring justice.”
Isaiah 42:3

“Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30

4. Sanctification is God’s work on God’s timeline.

“I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 1:6

“Therefore, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who is working in you both to will and to work according to his good purpose.”
Philippians 2:12-13

“We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
2 Corinthians 3:18

5. God’s power shows up in weakness, not perfection.

“But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.' Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may reside in me. So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Praise God for his faithfulness and goodness to us, even as we wrestle with the brokenness within ourselves and that we see throughout all creation. May he help us be gracious with ourselves and others, as he has been with us in Christ.

I have feelings.

Empty Nesters, in a Manner of Speaking

As of today, both of our girls are in “school” for the first time. I say “school,” because little Daisy’s just in a twice-a-week parents’ day out program, but nonetheless, both of our girls are at their respective schools at the same time for the first time…ever. It’s our first real taste of empty-nesting, I guess you could say.

Last Monday we dropped Maggie off at school for her first day of first grade, and we were a bit nervous, honestly. Maggie had a really hard time being dropped off at kindergarten last year not only at the beginning, but at various points throughout the school year after a prolonged break. So we weren’t sure how this year’s first day drop-off was going to go.

We were grateful that the principal saw her walking up and called her out by name, saying he was excited to see her back at school. Then she saw the school counselor and some other staff she loves, and took off after them to give them hugs. We had to beckon her back to give us hugs before we walked back to our car and made the drive home.

She did just fine. We missed her, though. Daisy, too.

Daisy starts her program the day you all receive this. As I write this the day before, I’m not entirely sure how she’s going to do! She’s quite old for her class, being a September birthday, so it’s going to be interesting to see how she does in a structured “classroom” environment filled with kids mostly younger than she is.

For example, last week Daisy walked up to Susie in the kitchen and dropped a contextually-appropriate, “Well, well, well,” and was also singing expressively alongside Aretha Franklin’s “Respect”—“Just a yittle bit! Just a yittle bit!” Meanwhile, at her preschool orientation last week, one of her barely-two-year-old classmates in attendance isn’t talking much yet. So, we’re wondering how this goes for her, particularly for her teachers. We’re just hoping some other kids in her class are closer to her age and developmental level.

Daisy has a bit more of a…feisty(?) personality than Maggie, so I suspect we could get a phone call or two from her teachers this year about possible behavioral issues. But we’ll see! She’s ready to make a bunch of new friends and have some more structure than she has at home. So we’re eager for her to get that.

Susie and I are going to go to lunch today to celebrate and grieve simultaneously. If you’re a parent, I suppose you understand.

When we sent our firstborn to kindergarten last year, I wrestled through more feelings of grief than this year. I suppose another, similar feeling of sadness will come in a few years when Daisy goes off to kindergarten.

I don’t really count myself among the people who don’t want their children to grow up, even if one day I do count myself among the dads who wishes his little girls were still small.

I know that, one day, I will miss their innocent eyes and small voices, but when I think of our girls growing up I find myself filled with more feelings of excitement than dread. I can’t wait to share parts of life with them that they couldn’t understand or enjoy yet—like the Harry Potter books or the Rocky Mountains or foods that don’t require a microwave. I can’t wait to tell them that boys are actually quite stupid and they shouldn’t cry over someone who is himself embarrassed to cry. And all the other dad stuff that awaits in the years to come.

I am grateful for who our girls have been, who they are becoming, and who they will be.

It’s August, and It Makes Me Want to Vomit

I wrote recently that this time of year is always a little difficult for me because I sort of endure something akin to seasonal depression—I’m kinda kidding about that, but also not really.

It has been sweltering hot and humid and so disgusting outside it’s even hard to sit out on the back porch at six o’clock in the morning without swatting mosquitos and feeling like you need gills to breathe. That’s nothing to say of the afternoon and evening hours, which are basically unbearable if your plans do not include some kind of body of water.

I think my lingering midwestern climatological sensibilities are at the core of my deep-seated disgust with August in the South. I still have not gotten used to it, after 13 years.

While it is still hot in my home country of the Midwest, part of what contributes to my gloom around this time is that I grew up seeing August as the last throes of summer that, throughout its tenure, gave way to cool mornings and jackets by the beginning of September. While here in Middle Tennessee August is the appetizer for what will almost certainly be a similarly-sweltering September—but at least then we’ll have football.

I say I struggle with “something akin” to seasonal depression because while the disgusting weather plays its central role in my malaise, I think August is always a bit depressing also because there’s just nothing really going on, other than the kids going back to school. The fall season holds so many enjoyable trappings beyond its more tolerable weather—football season arrives, new books and video games are on tap, delicious fall foods are in play, my birthday is in October, and then of course Halloween festivities, kicking off three months of holidays.

But August has none of these things, which I think just makes the intolerable weather even more miserable.

This discouragement I’m describing to you may be a bit overstated—I am not crippled by all of these superfluous annoyances and sources of grumbling to a point of not being able to function throughout the day—but I would be lying if I said I feel completely like myself these weeks.

A former co-worker of mine who lives in a particularly gloomy region of the country always used to say something like, “I am careful not to make any big life decisions in the depths of winter when gloom prevails and nothing feels happy.”

This is how I feel about August. Best to not upend my life when going outside at midday feels like a form of self-harm.

Hold Me Jesus

I think I’ve written about this here before, but I need to confess: I don’t really listen to much Christian music. I know…I know. Shame, shame.

That said, few Christian creatives in any form—author, speaker, musician, or otherwise—have ministered to me as much as Rich Mullins has ministered to me over the years. Being a 90s kid who grew up going to church and listening to some CCM, I was vaguely aware of Rich Mullins growing up, but I certainly never sought out his music. In fact, the songs of his I did know I mostly thought were cheesy—like “My God Is An Awesome God.”

Now, as a nearly-middle-aged, often weary, follower of Jesus, Rich Mullins and his music shepherd my soul.

This is especially true in the hellish doldrums of late summer Augusts and Septembers.

The last week or so, my daily lunchtime trips to the gym have been largely replaced by lunchtime walks around the neighborhood instead—yes I recognize the irony here—because I’ve needed to enjoy nature in spite of its heat instead of lumbering on a treadmill in the air conditioning for the better part of an hour.

I don’t go for a walk in August to find fresh air because I’m not a fool.

I endure the August heat in the middle of my day because I need to see the birds and the sky and imagine what’s beyond them.

Rich Mullins has been my companion on these lunchtime walks, and through songs like “Peace,” and “We Are Not As Strong As We Think We Are,” and “Hold Me Jesus,” God has kneaded my heart into a state of tenderness that repels the nagging discouragement and inexplicable dread I feel.

Dealing with the emotions of sending my girls off to school all while wrestling with my own discouragement in forms that look like self-loathing, imposter syndrome, and calling confusion leave me breathing, “Hold me Jesus, I’m shaking like a leaf,” in between deep inhales of barely-breathable air as I walk at the park next to my house.

I think one of the reasons Rich Mullins reaches me is because in his work I sense the tension between wanting to keep myself together and being willing to be broken so that I can be put back together.

In my flesh, I want to just keep myself together. It feels cleaner and easier than letting myself fall apart. August reminds me how fragile I am—that, indeed, I am not as strong as I think I am—and Rich Mullins gives me permission, if you will, to admit that to myself. And so I cry out to Jesus to hold me, because I feel like my life doesn’t make any sense at all, so I’m shaking like a leaf on account of being my own king of glory and attempting to be my own prince of peace.

Welcome to the second edition of BTW, my new paid feature, where I get a bit more personal and share things I probably wouldn’t share to the thousands of people who subscribe for free.

Here’s the rundown for this week:

• Looking Back…: highlights from the last week or so

• Let’s Talk: a one-take, laid-back walk through what I wrote on Tuesday (and other things)

• The Funny Part: a funny piece of the internet that hasn’t yet made it to The Funnies

• Some Links: thing I’ve been reading online

• A Quote to Consider: something to think about from something I’ve read recently

• Some Art: a cool picture or piece of art I saw this week

Looking Back

Let me tell you what I’ve been up to this week and perhaps make some recommendations for you (or tell you things to avoid, even!).

What’s been on my mind this week? Maggie, our firstborn, started first grade earlier this week. By the grace of God she went in without tears, which Susie and I were both concerned about because she had a hard time going back to school a few times after extended breaks last year. But she saw some staff she loved and ran right in. I’m going to write about our girls going to school soon. So I’ll leave the rest for that piece next week.

Read more

Lately, two topics have been recurring in a number of different places I pay attention. These two topics share something, even if they really have nothing to do with each other.

They are data centers and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The common thread they share is that everyone hates them.

Why?

Because they are totems of realities we cannot control and would not choose and will not stop.

The Data Center Revolt

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but AI is changing the world and if you don’t start using it, you’re going to get left behind. Not in the rapture sorta way, but in some other much more ominous, less cool kind of way, apparently. I use AI for some work functions, and I see some benefit from it. But I remain unconcerned about somehow being “left behind” by it. 5

I’m going to refrain from doing a deep dive into current issues related to AI and the AI revolt here, but I would encourage you to go watch or listen to Ezra Klein’s recent interview with Jasmine Sun, who has done a ton of research and reporting on AI sentiment around the country (and the world).6

Jasmine, speaking about a data center project in Saline, Michigan, outside of Ann Arbor, said this (bolding mine):

…when I learned how the Saline data center saga played out, what happened was the Saline Township board, unlike a lot of boards, actually voted 4 to 1 against rezoning their land for the data center. So this was a case where local government said: This is not our vision for our community. It’s not worth it to us.

And what happened? The data center developers sued Saline Township, a town of, again, a few thousand people, saying: Wait, no, this is exclusionary zoning. You can’t have no industrial use in your entire township. And when a town of that size is getting sued by a giant A.I. data center developer, they just settled.

They were just like: Fine, give us a few million for the fire department and for some schools, and this fight is not worth it to us. But that, to people, felt like a profound violation of little-D democracy.

It felt like the dark money in politics story, which is: You have some very rich companies show up with a bag of money to your politicians. They don’t tell anybody else what’s happening. The politicians aren’t allowed to tell their citizens and involve them in the decision-making process, and they themselves work out a deal — a deal that is fundamentally asymmetric because of the amount of money on one side — that will then transform the image of your community, your lived reality, into the world that these tech companies have decided for you.

And so I think that the data centers, in that sense, are a very visceral microcosm of the way that a lot of people feel that A.I. is showing up in their lives.

Ezra Klein responds to Jasmine, adding:

Sam Altman and all these different people, in front of congressional testimony and in interviews, will say: It should not just be us making these decisions. There should be a real, deep, small-D democratic role here in how A.I. rolls out, in what effects it has on communities and how it is governed.

And then when a community, or a politician who’s representing a community, tries to say: Well, we don’t want this data center here. Or: We want to impose these regulations — we have watched, repeatedly, these companies turn tremendous amounts of financial artillery against whoever is standing in their way. And use the expertise and the money and the power they are amassing to short-circuit that democratic voice.

So here’s the gist. There is a mammoth amount of negative public sentiment around AI right now, even from people like me! I don’t feel good about AI even though I see some utility in it! As Jasmine says later in the interview, one particular aspect of the technology that people don’t like that it is being “shoved down their throats” with no option to refrain from using it.7

Workplaces are mandating its use. Students are being told they can’t use it by teachers and administrators who can’t stop using it or who are even being mandated to use it.

When all of this is happening—all of this cajoling and hypocrisy and political bribery is going on—all around something that makes many uncomfortable on its face, we need a villain.

Whether we like it or not, and most of us don’t: AI is happening to us, and we cannot do anything about it.

It’s like we’re caught out in the middle of a hurricane that people are saying is actually very good for us and might cure cancer, meanwhile all we can see is how it is dismantling the things we care about most.

When we feel helplessly victimized by a force outside of our control, we need a villain. We need something to root against. We need something at which we can direct our disdain. That is what data centers are. Data centers play a key role, of course, in the development of AI. But they are far from the only “problem” with the whole situation. They do make for a great villain, however, because they’re one of the only real tangible, visceral manifestations of this amorphous “AI revolution.”

It’s like I heard on a podcast recently: if these giant data centers had a giant “Netflix” sign on the outside, or something to indicate they are related to a brand people generally feel good about that isn’t AI, there probably wouldn’t be nearly as much backlash, even if all of the environmental and other effects of data centers were still consistent. Paraphrasing Nilay Patel of The Verge in the podcast clip I mention above, people see a data center and immediately see the place where the jobs are going to go away and the cause of electricity’s price increase and the ways Mark Zuckerberg and all these tech guys are going to get even richer.

Data centers are our AI villain, a totem of a forced reality we do not like and cannot evade.

“The Los Angeles Dodgers Are Killing Baseball”

Around the end of July every year, Major League Baseball comes upon their trade deadline. It is a day around the end of July (this year it was August 3) by which all trades must be made within the MLB before the final stretch of the regular season commences.

Every year at the deadline, you have “buyers” and “sellers.” Teams that are well out of the hunt for the playoffs will often offload their star players, especially those whose contracts are about to expire, trading them to teams in the hunt for playoff glory in exchange for young prospects that could be helpful in a few years’ time.

This year, the top player most thought would be available at the deadline was Tarik Skubal, a starting pitcher for the Detroit Tigers and one of the best pitchers in baseball the last few years. The Tigers, thought to be a contender entering this season, have not been as good as projected and are likely out of the playoff picture. Skubal is in the last year of his contract. The Tigers knew the right answer was to trade Skubal to a contender in exchange for prospects and the hope of a better future instead of letting his contract run out at the end of the season and miss getting anything in return.

Fans of any team in contention would have loved for Skubal to join their team. He is an amazing pitcher. But everyone knew as the deadline approached: Skubal is going to go to the Dodgers. Why?

Because the Dodgers have a super team full of future Hall of Famers they acquired by paying for, not developing, and they will pay and do anything to gobble up every best player available.

Tarik Skubal was traded to the Dodgers, and all hell broke loose among Major League Baseball fans, even if they weren’t shocked in the least.

For the record, here are the payrolls of all 30 MLB teams:

There is no salary cap in baseball, but more on that in a moment.

You can see why baseball fans everywhere hate the Dodgers. Even if they haven’t done anything wrong, they appear to have just bought the best team in baseball. Seems kinda not cool.

They’ve won the last two World Series, because of course they have with that payroll, and there’s every reason to believe they will win again this year.8

But we need to go beyond the Dodgers for a moment—we’ll come back to them in a bit.

Here’s where things get interesting: the collective bargaining agreement between Major League Baseball owners and the Major League Baseball Players’ Association ends this offseason. This is a big deal because of a disagreement between the two parties. To perhaps oversimplify the situation: owners want to institute a salary cap, and the players will not agree to a salary cap.

Owners would like a salary cap for obvious reason(s): so that they can compete without spending $400 million dollars a year or more, which seems to be the requirement at the moment.

Players would prefer not to have a salary cap for an obvious reason: if there is a salary cap, there is a ceiling to how much players can make.

In truth, as a fan, I think we probably need both a salary cap and a salary floor, which is what I believe the NBA has going on over there. We need teams to be required to spend a certain amount on players without spending over a certain amount.

Here’s the deal: there is going to be a lockout/strike in baseball in the upcoming season as a result of the disagreement between owners and players around the matter of player salaries and caps and such. It is possible, if not probable, that the 2027 MLB season will actually just not happen. A number of analysts have all but guaranteed it in the last year or so. 9

Now this is where the Dodgers come into play again.

The problem with the Dodgers is not only that they are just buying up all the good players and buying their way to World Series victories, but it is also that the Dodgers have become the totem, the symbol, the prime example, of why the work stoppage is going to happen.

Whether right or wrong, fair or foul, that is what has happened. They have become the symbol of the problem. Not because they created it, but because they’re the only ones benefitting from it.

Some baseball fans hate the Dodgers because they want to be the Dodgers.

Some baseball fans hate the Dodgers because they are demonstrating everything wrong with baseball right now, even if they’re not doing anything against the rules.

They are exploiting a system that is broken and, in the view of many, exacerbating the issue at hand.

You may recall, I wrote the following above about data centers:

When we feel helplessly victimized by a force outside of our control, we need a villain. We need something to root against. We need something at which we can direct our disdain. That is what data centers are. Data centers play a key role, of course, in the development of AI. But they are far from the only “problem” with the whole situation. They do make for a great villain, however, because they’re one of the only real tangible, visceral manifestations of this amorphous “AI revolution.”

Now let’s replace some key words:

When we feel helplessly victimized by a force outside of our control, we need a villain. We need something to root against. We need something at which we can direct our disdain. That is what the Dodgers are. The Dodgers play a key role, of course, in the broken competitive balance of Major League Baseball. But they are far from the only “problem” with the whole situation. They do make for a great villain, however, because they’re one of the only real tangible, visceral manifestations of this amorphous “competitive balance” problem.

Dodgers and data centers: symbolic, totemic villains of inequalities and cultural changes that are unceasing, out of our control, and unsavory to most people outside of California.

A Final Reflection

Let’s leave baseball behind for a moment, because, while maybe instructive as an image, that issue is of little real concern.

I’m still quite young, at least with regard to workforce demographics. But even more broadly I haven’t quite reached what is commonly called “middle age.” I feel like I’ve seen a lot for a 36-year-old—the internet explosion, 9/11, the Great Recession, COVID, and now AI—but it does lately feel like so much is just happening to us. I’ve been reading pretty widely about young people and their financial nihilism lately, and a sense of powerlessness seems to pervade across wide swaths of American culture today.

We see changes happening that we cannot control and would not choose and will not stop.

Grocery prices are through the roof. Houses are increasingly unaffordable for even middle class Americans. People are gambling at alarming rates because they feel its their only hope of getting ahead. Students are, in some places, being told to not use AI by teachers and administrators who use it freely. Elderly Americans are living in nursing homes that cost so much money that any wealth that may be transferred to their children or grandchildren is going to medicare companies instead. Meanwhile a war with Iran rages on with unclear goals and no real end in sight, exacerbating many of the issues listed above.

All the while we’re collectively standing in the middle of a race course on which a handful of the most powerful, richest companies in the world led by the richest people in the world are sprinting toward a undefined finish line of AI “success,” trampling us as they run, and telling us its good for us, and we better keep up or all hope will be lost.

“What hope?” many say in response.

I am so grateful for my family, my church community, my work, and that I managed to establish a financial foothold in life before all of this started to happen. Because if I was a 22-year-old newly-married college graduate who was struggling to find a job, pay for groceries, and save for a home, I’d be a lot more discouraged by this whole situation than I already am.10

Friends, I think we’re careening toward a cliff, and I think the revolt against data centers is just the canary in the coal mine signaling more to come. It isn’t good when so many people feel powerless. Powerlessness leads to desperation, and desperation leads us to forget the image of God in other people, which leads to violence and all other manners of harm. I am concerned that’s where we’re headed—the mass dehumanization of others to a degree we have not yet seen, at least in my lifetime. And that’s saying something.

The chief promises of AI are increased productivity and efficiency, which eventually provide prosperity. An increasing share of Americans feel desperate for some measure of prosperity that would solve all of their problems, which provides fertile soil for AI’s proliferation. My concern is that humanity, the imago dei, is not optimized for productivity and efficiency. Nor is beauty.

AI is gobbling up every inefficiency in our workplaces, schools, and otherwise.

When will it consume humanity and all of its beautiful inefficiencies?

Reminder, this post is behind the newly-installed paywall. The main reason for this is because I’m planning on being a bit more vulnerable, personal, and unpolished in this feature. I suppose my logic is that if you’re willing to pay me $3 per month, you can be trusted with what I share here. I don’t feel the need to blast all of this out to thousands of people and the broader internet. :)

So, here’s the rundown:

• Let’s Talk: a one-take, laid-back walk through what I wrote on Tuesday (and other things)

• Looking Back…: highlights from the last week or so

• Looking Ahead…: what I’m looking forward to

• The Funny Part: a funny piece of the internet that hasn’t yet made it to The Funnies

• A Quote to Consider: something to think about from something I’ve read recently

• A Question for You: answer me!

• Some Art: a cool picture or piece of art I saw this week

Let’s Talk

Below, I ramble for almost 14 minutes, reflecting on what I wrote Tuesday—talking through work changes, summer happenings, and more beyond what I wrote. Maybe you’d like to listen! If so, you can listen right below here, and if not, just keep scrolling for the goods!

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Taking the month of July off when I’m in a writing rhythm is always nice, just as a means of reset, setting aside some time to plan and write without the self-imposed pressure of needing to have something to send every Tuesday.

Plenty of updates to share with you today. So let’s get going. First up, some changes to this newsletter.

Changes to This Newsletter

I launched this newsletter in the spring of 2020, just over six years ago. Rarely am I ever doing something before it is “cool,” but I suppose I can claim that I was here on Substack long before it was cool. Substack is really exploding these days!

When I started on Substack six years ago, most of my writing was available for paid subscribers only—the ability to have paid subscribers was one of the hallmark features of Substack, after all. About a year or so into that experiment, I think, I removed the paywall on everything and it hasn’t ever returned.

Until now.

As of today, I have turned paid subscriptions on again for the first time in years. Here’s the plan: all of my actual long-form(ish) writing—mostly delivered on Tuesdays—will remain free. No one who’s been reading should really lose anything.

What I’m doing instead is adding more content for people and gating it behind the paid subscription tier. This will primarily come in the form of a new Thursday newsletter called “BTW.”

Here’s an explanation:

Free subscribers get:

• Everything they’ve been getting (posts on Tuesdays)

Paid subscribers get:

• Posts on Tuesdays (obviously)

• 2-4 Thursday posts per month, which will be:

  • Podcast episodes, usually riffing on a Tuesday post or something I’ve been watching/reading

  • Recommendations of things to listen to, watch, or read

  • Experimental writing and off-the-wall weirdo kinda stuff

• Access to the full content archive

• Access to a Discord server to hang out and chat with me or others

Really, by re-introducing the paid subscription option, I want to provide a way for people to financially support the newsletter and get some perks as a thank-you for it. That’s what is going on here. I’m not interested in putting my normal writing behind a paywall right now. But I’d love to provide patrons with some bonus material.

If you’d like to become a paid subscriber, I am grateful, and you can do so here.

Note: if you have been a paid subscriber to this newsletter previously, you aren’t anymore. I’ve removed all paid subscribers, as they likely don’t even remember they were paid subscribers. :)

New Job!

Back in the spring, I left my role at Moody Global Media and joined the team at Rooted Network. I believe I have mentioned this job change in passing at some point, but I haven’t shared about it in any detail until now.

I serve as the content development and marketing director at Rooted Network, which is a ministry of Mariners Church that resources and supports local churches in their discipleship strategy and ministry efforts. I joined the team back in March, and it has been a joy. I am grateful to be led again by Eric Geiger and Earl Roberson, as I once was at Lifeway, and I am excited that I get to spend my days exercising my creative gifts in ways I just really wasn’t in my previous role. I have loved getting to join forces with some former Lifeway colleagues and serve the local church again with them.

Part of my work has been getting Rooted Network going here on Substack. We will be sharing two or three articles about discipleship and local church ministries each week in our Making Disciples newsletter.

Check it out or pass it along to a friend in ministry if it looks helpful to you!

Six Years of The Funnies

Just a couple of weeks ago, we celebrated roughly six years and 300 editions of The Funnies over at thefunnies.substack.com.

The Funnies all started because I was publishing a weekly roundup of articles on social media, the internet, and other topics, and each of those newsletters included “The Funny Part” at the bottom every Tuesday. Eventually I did some sleuthing and found out that The Funny Part was the most popular portion of my meticulously-researched social media roundup newsletter.

So I just decided to spin that off into its own thing, delivering on Saturday mornings at 6am CT, called The Funnies. It’s like if the funny pages of the newspapers1 were full of internet jokes and memes instead of comic strips.

The Funnies has significantly more subscribers than this newsletter does, and so it’s likely you heard of that one before you came across this one.

Keeping The Funnies going is no small task—believe it or not, it can be difficult to corral and keep track of all of those tweets and such—but it’s one of my favorite creative projects ever. In fact, keeping The Funnies going is one of the only reasons I still lurk on Twitter at all—that’s where all the funny people are!

It’s just so much fun to gather around humor and light-heartedness with strangers on the internet when it can often feel so much easier to be bleak and cynical.

I never would have guessed we’d make it to 300 editions of The Funnies, but I’m so glad we have. It’s so cool to have that feeling of consistently doing a single project for so long. There are no plans to stop, either! Here’s to 300 more, at least!

If you haven’t subscribed to The Funnies, somehow, you can do so here.

Church Ministry Changes

Susie and I have had the privilege of leading a community group at our local church for the last seven years or so. This spring we informed our group that we were stepping back from community group leadership. There are a handful of reasons for this, but a significant part of our decision is, frankly, that I just wanted a season to be a part of a group without leading a group. Leading a small group is wonderful, but there is certainly a special kind of burden that comes with it. Set aside hosting and coordinating all the logistics, to be “on” one night a week for seven years straight, ready to lead an intentional—sometimes intense!—spiritual discussion with a dozen-or-so people is exhausting. I think that I was beginning to get a bit burnt out, to be honest. So we are joining another community group in our church this month and are looking forward to learning from other leaders in this season. I am sure we will lead a community group again sometime in the future.

Another reason I wanted to step back from leading a community group is because I wanted to find other ways to serve in the local church that may not be possible if we’re also leading a community group. Our church has a year-long, “seminary lite” sort of program that meets throughout the school year on Sunday evenings, and I am planning to be one of the rotating instructors for that course this upcoming school year. I haven’t routinely taught since leaving my student ministry position a number of years ago, so I’m excited to be a part of that program.

Summer Activities

It has been such a busy summer for our family. We knew that it was going to be busy going into it, but man it has really blown past our expectations!

We kicked off the summer with a week-long trip to Disney World that we had been planning for the better part of a year. That was a blast. Both girls, Maggie (6) and Daisy (2.5) had a great time, and somehow managed to keep going late into the night each day of our trip without ever taking naps—they caffeinate the air down there, or something. Daisy’s favorite part was taking the Skyliner from our hotel to various places. Maggie’s favorite part was Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, or “The Ride Formerly Known as Splash Mountain.” She rode on it twice and would have gone many more times if permitted.

After our trip to Disney World came a couple different VBS weeks, multiple stints of family visiting our place, an Ed Sheeran concert for Susie, Maggie, and me, and then the Fourth of July. After the Fourth, we made our way up to Indiana for our annual tour of the northern half of the state, visiting as much family as we can along the way.

Finally, things began to wind down the second half of July and we started to set our feet for beginning of the school year coming up here in the next week or so. We have had so much fun as a family this summer, but I think all of us are looking forward to some more standard rhythms as we begin the school year. I may write more about that soon.

Thank You!

If I can summarize how I feel in this season, it is that I feel refreshed. Of course a father of two little, energetic girls can only ever feel so refreshed—hah—but I feel about as refreshed as can be expected in this busy, exciting season of life.

I’m writing more than I have in years, and only a small fraction of that writing finds its way to this newsletter. I’m reading so many good books that are inspiring and educating me in fresh ways. Though my daughters tire me, they’re just so much fun to be around. God is good, and he has been so kind to provide this season for me.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for reading. I am grateful to share this online space with you, and I am hopeful that everything to come in this newsletter is an encouragement to you in one way or another.

-Chris

-Chris

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Fret…

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