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If you are like me, sometimes you just need a soundtrack while you work. Space Banjo has been that for me recently. Chill, ambience banjo soaked in atmosphere.

A friend— and not the first— inquired how I am finding the time to read as much as I have recently. And the answer was the same as any other hobby. We are really good in the West at wasting time. Over the last couple hundred years we have made invention after invention to save us time— laundry machines, dish washers, refridgerators, and more— and then most of us found that we didn’t have anything good to do with that time. So we filled it with emotional birds, endless scroll feeds of nonsense, and reality television.

The average American adult spends 3 hours a day watching television. Think about all the idle time you scroll on your phone, all the time you watch YouTube videos, TikTok, Twitter, and more. Now think, of all the books I have read this year the average is 6-7 hours long on Audible. At 1.2 speed— I always listen to books and podcasts sped up— you can complete most of these books in 6 hours or less. The average American adult could cut out television alone, by the stat above, and finish two to three books a week.

The average American commute is around thirty minutes one way. Some of us fill that time with music, some with podcasts, some with idle thoughts, and others with more scrolling on their phones. Back to that average Audible book I have consumed this year, you could complete one book a week on your commute alone.

It is said that we make time for the things that are important to us, but I find most people just settle into wasting time without even thinking about the hours and what could be done over time. Find a book on Audible, jump in the car, hit play, and go to work. Here, I’ll even pick one out for you. Come back and look at my Shelf for another when you’re done.

Have I mentioned how much that I have been reading recently? Let’s just say that it has become habit. Most of what I’ve been reading has been through Audible and Canon+, with books falling mostly below 10 hours, averaging 5-7 hours. Many small peaks. Now my list of books is narrowing into larger books, with Plato’s Republic (12+ hours), The Brothers Karamzov (39+ hours), and more dense books on the horizon. And I’m looking forward to that.

I have picked up a few habits and thoughts.

  1. It is perfectly fine to be reading multiple books at a time. I used to feel bad about unfinished books when I grabbed a shiny new one. It was enough to make me think I was failing to complete books and then perpetually fulfill that prophecy. This is fine and often necessary. I cannot read Abigail Shrier’s Bad Therapy through to completion, for example. Too much info, too depressing, etc. So I paired it with G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy and a couple good podcasts that helped on the hopeful side.
  2. Biographies on great leaders are better than books on leadership. Albert Mohler pointed this out in his book on leadership that I read in February and I couldn’t be more happy with that revelation. I read a book about Alfred the Great and just finished Orthodoxy by Chesterton specifically because of this recommendation. Do this.
  3. Do not forgo fiction. I got my start on the Internet with Animorphs. Fiction was my high school and college years and then I… grew out of it. That’s dumb. I forget which book emphasised the need to read fiction, but I took it to heart and have completed two-thirds of C.S. Lewis’ Ransom Trilogy this year and plan to start the next in earnest soon. I do love intellectually dense books of non-fiction, but the joy of world-building, allegory, metaphor, and escape that fiction provides brings something more. Men were made for storytelling, so don’t see yourself as above or past fiction.

So, what is next on my reading list? A big one that I tried to tackle a long time ago and failed. Over the last few months I personally finished all three extended cuts of Lord of the Rings and in the last week we have watched the first two with our four children. Lord of the Rings quotes are flying in our house, my oldest boy is making weapons out of paper and sticks, epic battles are occurring, and I love it. I tried to read Fellowship in high school and gave up trying to summit the first mountains. But I find myself longing for those mountains again and have a plan.

Next month I will be taking time away from social media as I dive into Middle Earth. What I find time and again— and have mentioned repeatedly on this blog— is that social media draws you away from reading deeply and draws you into a void of vanity, quick reward, and distraction. Let me be clear, I have no direct issue with those things. Personal responsibility is important and I personally love engaging with fellow Christians— sharpening iron— in that space. But I shared a quote yesterday on Twitter from Blaise Pascal:

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

Sit quietly. Alone. I am an introvert. This should be a strength. And to a high degree, it is. But, like so many, my phone can easily overcome my boredom. As I read more and more, I find myself loving the quiet solitude of consuming a book with a cup of coffee and few other distractions.

So, starting in April I will head to the Shire. Finally.

Remember, whenever you’re reading anything like this, that the necessary conclusion of terms like “brutal surgical and sexological practices” is two demon-possessed men trying to negotiate the third demon-possessed man up to the hidden guillotine in the wall so they can offer another “head” to the “Head.”

Butler, though overweeningly serious, is yet not nearly as serious as Satan who really does want every man, woman, and child to die and go to hell. And along the way, to consume as much unreadable prose and be as miserable as possible in the name of the Revolution.

Fortunately for us, Satan lacks self-control. He can’t keep anything within reasonable proportion. He can’t be content with transing just some of the kids. He must trans all of them. He must destroy every human body on the way to devouring every precious soul. And so, eventually, all the confused speech becomes such a deafening cacophony of lies, that all the “surgical racism,” whatever that is, will be seen for what it is—total and complete evil.

Surgical and Sexological Practices? Not Today, Satan by Anne Kennedy

So many good tidbits here with some C.S. Lewis for framing. My podcast and book reading of late have pushed me to dive deeper into Lewis and Tolkien. To find footnotes and read more. I am two-thirds of the way through the Ransom/Space trilogy for the reason that I need to read That Hideous Strength. It is so ever-present in conversations today that I know many of the plot points like memes for movies I have never watched— like Princess Bride.

And when someone tries to make you feel uncomfortable in your body, or lie about the purposes and designs for which you are made, make merciless fun of them while eating chocolates and drinking a thimble of sherry.

There has been a lot of talk in my house of sharp swords and solid shields, but there has also been a focus on laughing at our enemy’s foolishness while living for the glory of God. I think Anne nails the landing here. I have war stories, but I also share the most hilarious memes with my friends.

The last couple months have been busy. That could be a bad thing, but it generally hasn’t been. I’ve finished a handful of books over the last few weeks including a biography on Alfred the Great and some C.S. Lewis, am deep in others from G.K. Chesterton and Abigail Shrier, and have finished rewatching the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I’ve spent time cuddling a newborn baby, finishing a kitchen island, and learning many new things for a new job.

As stated last month, I got laid off, had interviews, and got a job offer within the last week before our fourth child was born. In the time since losing my job— and gaining another— and having a baby, I have finished reading twelve books. And in that time my RSS backlog has bloated and I have disconnected from much of social media outside of the Christian Twitter community.

And that is a good thing.

I have slowed down, lived more presently, and made not only a habit of reading, but a passion of it. I believe that most people today need to slow down and get out of the rat race of life. At least from time to time. Enjoy brewing coffee the slow way, listening to a podcast on 1x speed, smiling at your kids rough-housing just like you used to, and just loving life.

Busy is not a bad thing. Idle hands are the Devil’s playground.

The kingdom of the morning star
Can pierce a cold and stony heart
It’s grace went through me like a sword
And came out like a song
Now I’m just waiting for the day
In the shadows of the dawn

But I won’t wait, resting my bones

Kinda having a Gray Havens kick right now. We were up late— 9pm— singing last night, just soaking and worshipping.

He said you are a lonely soul
With a heart of stone
That rakes against your thirsty bones

I’m coming late to this artist, but golly I am in for lyrics steeped in story like this. Let’s go!

Oh, and take note of the new tag on here #playlist-2024. I share new albums from time to time into #music, thoughts on music, and more. So sometimes posts in #music are not just songs. Want a good playlist of music? Check out #playlist-2024.

Last week I commented on a post on Twitter regarding “yoga pants.” Specifically, I did not call out any woman outside my household. I did not make any lewd remarks. I said that this falls squarely on fathers to teach their daughters modesty.

As you can see, this kinda blew up. I reported a half a dozen tweets— threats against my life, lewd and violent comments about my daughter, etc— and was stormed with some of the most vile remarks I’ve heard in some time. Unfortunately with my storied history of facing dragons, most of these comments weren’t new to me.

I want to call out a few of the most common responses below and respond.

You Just Want to Control Women

We have two clothing rules in our house. No pajamas out of the house— aside from PJ days at school— and you must wear shorts or a skirt over tights.

One of those rules will only ever apply to my daughter and wife, but the other applies to everyone. And what is the basis of the rule? Self-respect. A self-respecting person does not leave the house in their pajamas. I’m not talking when you go get the mail— though I wouldn’t— but going to Walmart, going to the park, and certainly going to church. You might retort “how dare you tell me how to dress,” but the reality is that I didn’t. I said a self-respecting person does not leave the house in their pajamas. You may hear in this statement that I look at pajamaed folks at Walmart as lacking self-respect and you would be right. But the last thing any of us would do is call them out on this, point it out to our kids, mock them, or worse. If they want to dress that way, go for it, but I truly feel their self-worth could use some work. As for my household, we don’t dress like that. We raise the bar of self-worth and self-respect. We don’t raise it so high that my 6 year old has to wear a bowtie and pressed slacks, just no pajamas.

And tights. As you see above, we value self-respect and self-worth. And part of self-respect is keeping private that which is to be kept private. Tights leave very little to the imagination. We treat them like underwear. They are to be worn under something else. My wife, well before we started dating, was all about tights and shorts. The loudest patterns and designs and a pair of shorts or a skirt. And I loved it then and I love it now. If my daughter wants to wear tights, all she has to do is throw a skirt or shorts over them.

Neither of these two rules has to do, specifically, with women. Yes, the modern culture says that if you tell women what to do then it is automatically about them being women, even if what you are telling them to do has nothing to do with them being women. These rules are about self-respect. This is something my boys need too.

Also neither of these two rules has to do with control. Not in the sense of iron-fisted, kingly control anyway. I am a father of four. My wife and I do have control over our children because they are children. If we didn’t have control over our household, we would have completely different problems. But these rules are not about control in the sense of “my children dress this way to make me happy and if I say jump, they jump.” No, we are just infusing them with respect for their appearance and image when they are in the public eye. While there are days that my daughter will grumble off to throw a skirt on, most days now she realizes as she puts the tights on that she needs a skirt. This is parenting. Building habit and routine takes time, persistence, and consistency.

You Are Sexualizing Your Daughter

Look at my comment above. There is nothing sexual about it. But one reply said:

You are teaching a child that her body is “immodest” and therefore you are teaching her that her body is sexual.

This is, of course, a non sequitur. Yes, technically by teaching your children to be modest, you are teaching them that to not dress modestly is immodest, but that is not the same as teaching them that their bodies are sexual. No, my daughter knows very little about sexuality because she is nine. But every parent knows that they need to be teaching their children the importance of private parts being private. We are told too often about uncles molesting young children, teachers doing nasty things, and more and one of the biggest ways to prevent these things is teaching your children certain things. Any adult wanting to keep secrets from Mom and Dad is a threat— unless we are talking Christmas presents and such. Any peer that wants to exchange glances as privates is a threat. Only certain people— namely medical professionals— can ask to see their privates and only while Mom and Dad are present.

Privates are private. This is why my children change clothes in different rooms, why they don’t shower together, why they close the door when they are using the restroom, and more. And none of that is considered crazy or sexualizing. No, I don’t let my six year old son run around the house naked. Crazy right?

And thus the same carries that wearing clothing that does little to hide one’s privates fits the same category. This is not, in and of itself, about sexuality. My daughter is nine. At this point we are talking building foundations of self-respect, honor, and grace that will lead to her teenage years and beyond. If she is used to showing off her privates as a nine year old, this will become a huge problem when she is sixteen.

Your Daughter Will Hate You

Yeah, this is something every parent has to weigh. Every punishment I dole out, every correction I make, every Christmas present I get I have to weigh what my child’s response will be. In the moment, two hours from now, two days from now, two decades from now. Will my child look back when she has her own children and say, “Dad was right,” or will she say, “I would never do things that way?” In my own parenting there are times that I have called my parents and apologized and thanked them for the way they raised me. But I’d be remiss to not say also there are things that I would not repeat or see as a stepping stone towards a better way to handle certain things.

This is parenting.

But there were many replies to my comment indicating that by simply teaching my daughter to be modest I was guaranteeing that my daughter would rebel and turn on me, she would stash clothing outside the home and change when she left, etc. And I have to say some stuff here.

We have a radically individualistic culture with no concern for family, honor, and continuance today. The average parent sends their children off to school to be raised by other people, around children they don’t know, and teachers that we’ve seen turn kids on their parents. Media— television, movies, music— doesn’t push kids to respect their parents, but quite the opposite. Dads are shown to be buffoons, moms run the household, and kids rebel and are rewarded for their rebellion.

Raise your kids to honor their mother’s and father’s. What is this word honor? Obey? Listen to? Yes, those things, but so much more. We have a culture today that dishonors our history regularly. The history of the West, of America, of Christendom, of the Church, and more. If you are a white person— hi!— you are told that you cannot be proud of your lineage, your story. If we don’t honor our parents, our grandparents, our ancestors, how can we expect our children to honor us? This is more than just simply obeying, but truly respecting. Why do we obey? Because our parents deserve honor.

This obviously lands us at a parent must be honorable. Yes, children should honor and dishonorable parent, but that often leads to rebellion later in life. You need to show mercy and grace, consistency, care, compassion, and love to your children. You need to show them how to live by living in a way for them to follow. This includes heapings of grace and humility. When you screw up, admit it and apologize. You snapped a bit too quick at their behavior? Sit them down and apologize. Ask forgiveness. Show them how that works. If they are screaming at you, de-escalate the situation through curiosity, compassion, and mercy. There are times they need to know that you can shout louder, but it cannot be every time. There are times they need to know that you can spank them, but it cannot be every time. And you need to be consistent in this.

One of my favorite moves when my daughter is throwing a tantrum is to ask if she needs a hug. Usually this leads to the most loving hug and her bawling her eyes out. It doesn’t always work, but it often does. She knows that Dad is safe.

I could write a lot about these things. Maybe sometime I will. But I write these things to say that we try to be honorable— worthy of honor— in our parenting so that when we ask that our children honor us they cannot act like that is rank hypocrisy.

Could my daughter one day decide she hates me? Yes. And all I can do in the meantime is try to raise her righteously, full of grace. And so far it is working. As the replies rolled in yesterday, my daughter sat next to me laughing her completely covered butt off at the terrible arguments being made and she explained to me the importance of modesty.

Fathers

Fathers— and mothers—, you are not supposed to be your child’s friend. You are their parent. With that you have a duty to teach them, to guide them, to raise them in righteousness. You will have to correct them along the way. You will have to exert control. How much is going to depend on the situation, on the child, on the subject, etc. and you will have to figure that out. Surround yourself with other parents and seek wise counsel often. Seek advice from your parents too.

There are dragons rearing their thorny heads today. They will see you trying to raise your children right— trying to teach your children biblical truths and ethics, trying to protect them from a world that wants their souls— and they will scream, call you names, insult your children, and even threaten to hurt you. Dragons will be dragons. But we don’t take parenting advice from dragons, do we?

Remember a few years ago when the San Francisco Gay Choir sang their rousing song “We’re Coming For Your Children” and then quickly walked it back and claimed it was meant as mocking satire of Republicans? Many brushed it off, many forgot, many didn’t buy that they were being that insidiously public about their intentions.

Moloch wants blood.

[…] “abused child” means a child whose parent […] denies the child access to necessary medical care, including […] gender-affirming services.

Illinois House Bill 4876

Last month a bill was proposed in Illinois’ House to declare it child abuse to deny a child access to gender-affirming services, which would include puberty blockers, hormone treatment, and surgery.

Specifies that consent to the performance of […] gender-affirming services executed by a minor is not voidable because of such minority. Provides that a health care professional rendering […] gender-affirming services shall not incur civil or criminal liability for failure to obtain valid consent or professional discipline for failure to obtain valid consent if the health care professional relied in good faith on representations made by the minor.

Illinois House Bill 4876

It also allows for minors to consent— which is currently not consent and thus illegal— and that medical professionals cannot be charged for failing to obtain consent from a parent or guardian.

Let me make this clearer. If this passes, CPS can take your child under the claim of “child abuse” if you disagree with your child’s teacher’s assessment that they are transgendered and force them into surgery, incurring irreversible damage. We are talking the government having the ability to make eunuchs of your boys, sterilizing your girls, all before you can stop them. And this is already happening in other states. Illinois is not the first.

Moloch demands blood.

Christian men. Many of you failed to recognize what was coming twenty years ago while I was in college with a push for “rights,” “equality,” and normalization of homosexuals. Those of us that were warning you were called out on slippery slope arguments, but we were on the ground, seeing the movements of our enemies, being removed by security for silently disagreeing. Many of you failed when Obergefell was ruled by the Supreme Court in 2015 and the dissenters warned you what was going to come next. Many of you ignored when bakeries were sued for tens of thousands of dollars for refusing to make a cake. These were all opportunities to defend the walls, to hold back the enemy. And many of you failed. You thought Christians were too political, you thought you needed to love your neighbor in a way that even God wouldn’t, you thought that surely the enemy would stop once they captured just one more bit of land. And you were wrong. Repeatedly.

If you made it through that nodding, I am sorry, brothers. Know that so many of us tried to stop this at each step and were pushed aside by leaders that didn’t want to hear it. Many of those leaders deceived you to take the positions— or lack of positions— that you have. I get that and feel sympathy for you.

But, welcome to the wall.

The enemy is at the gates and wants your children. They want to see your family lines ended. Your boys castrated and your girls maimed and left unable to reproduce. Infertility has been a weapon of war since the dawn of time. It was one of the worst curses you could inflict on a person, a family, a society. And this is what the transgender movement does to young boys and girls. They are just the latest way to get this done.

The bill above? It allows the state to take children from parents that do not consent to this moral insanity. Christians that believe that gender and sexuality are intrinsically tied together. Christians that believe that God made their children exactly how they are. And instead of the state letting parents be parents and raise their children as they see fit, the state is trying to redefine parenting as “child abuse”.

The severity of this situation cannot be understated. What I have written here will piss off a lot of people. Some are ill-advised, some are overly-empathetic, and some are deranged. But this isn’t directed at them. This is directed at Christian men.

Man the gates. Rebuild the walls. Educate yourself. Watch your enemy. Learn their tactics. Learn history, philosophy, and theology. And unfortunately, I must add, you need to do it quick. There are books on my Shelf that you need to read. Slaying Leviathan will get you a great overview of how the Christian understanding of government got us to the founding of America and the criticality of Christianity to our legal system. Strange New World will give you a deep dive into philosophy and how we got to where we are that this moral insanity is tough to fight intellectually. Irreversible Damage will help you see the enemy and how they are prowling after our daughters.

I want to make clear one point of action. Find any way possible to get your children out of the public schools. I know your counter arguments well and have sympathy for them. If you want to message me and ask questions, please do. But this is one of the enemy’s largest attack vectors and it’s only getting worse. Private school, homeschool, and other options exist. But public school really is no longer an option for your children, Christian men. See Irreversible Damage.

There is a war for the heart and soul of our nation, of our world. Satan is trying to destroy the children of God. That’s you and me and that’s our children. Our children are our charge to protect. And by our, I mean you, fathers. You need to wake up, wisen up, sharpen your sword and rebuild the walls (Nehemiah 4:18). The enemy will mock, they will jeer, they will mount attacks against your job, your reputation, your family, and more.

Hear, O our God, for we are despised. Turn back their taunt on their own heads and give them up to be plundered in a land where they are captives. Do not cover their guilt, and let not their sin be blotted out from your sight, for they have provoked you to anger in the presence of the builders.

So we built the wall.

Nehemiah 4:4-6a

Men, God is on your side. Welcome to the wall. Let’s build.

One of the most devestating losses of the slow death of CSS Tricks is the loss of detailed guides for new, complex CSS features like Grid and Flexbox. It’s great to see the return of the personal blog where people like Ahmad Shadeed makes a great guide to :has like the one below.

Read CSS :has() Interactive Guide here