Sydney Johnson > Recent Status Updates

“Too often Christians debate the fact of predestination in such a way that both sides forget what a wonderful doctrine it would be if it were true. The real stakes in the real debate are joy and laughter.”

Biblical Narrative class was so good last night I WEPT on the Zoom no lie

Bars on bars:

“Depression has now become to me as a prophet in the rough clothing, a John the Baptist heralding the nearer coming of my Lord’s richer benison.”

“…we should be as the chaff that the wind drives away were it not that the gracious discipline of mercy breaks the ships of our vainglory with a strong east wind and casts us shipwrecked, naked and forlorn, upon the Rock of Ages.”

“Patience has its martyrs; martyrs none the less to be honored because the flames kindle about their spirits rather than their bodies, and their burning is unseen of human eyes… but honor those who, being faint, are still pursuing…”

Really enjoying art history through the perspective of a pastor- very different from art school

“Cultivate the habit of pursuing beauty… Beauty is a relic of Eden- a remnant of what is good. It comes from a deeper realm. It trickles into our lives as water from a crack in a dam and what lies on the other side of that dam fills us with wonder and fear. Glory lies on the other side. And we were made for glory.”

Kant & Hegel

This book is very slow going but fun! Like a collection of short stories but instead they’re casual summaries on different philosophers.

“Good art has a ring of truth to it — a sense that something permanently important about the world has been made clear”

“The world we see today is the legacy of people noticing the world and commenting on it in forms that have been preserved… the world became a subtly larger, richer, more complex and meaningful place as a result.”