Friday Finds, XI

Should You Take Your Shoes Off at Home? (NY Times)

On the one hand, wearing shoes in the house is a tough proposition for me. Sure it's cultural, but I can't get past thinking how much nastiness people are bringing in from the outside. And when I see people on TV wearing shoes on the bed or putting their shoes up on the couch, it makes me very uncomfortable.

On the other hand, I grew up playing rough-and-tumble outside, sat and rolled around on streets and sidewalks, climbed trees, and played around storm drains. Maybe that's why I don't suffer from bad allergies. I always took my shoes off though.


Atlanta belongs to the roaches now. We merely live here. (Atlanta Magazine)

Plenty of my fellow Atlantans have, anecdotally, observed a worse-than-usual cockroach season this year. They’re dropping from the ceilings at night and landing on our faces. They’re setting up shop inside our liquor cabinets. They’re assembling armadas around our front doors. “I see them scurry through the streets at night,” Catie Leary, a downtown Decatur resident, tweeted recently. “One flew and landed on my shoulder last week. One crawled across a book I was reading, and I considered burning the book. Fear lives in my heart at all times.”

I live in an old house, in a very wooded neighborhood, in Decatur. I see cockroaches on our streets scurrying about at night. We get regular pest control. I still see a cockroach once every 3 weeks.

“I don’t think there’s a house in Georgia that hasn’t had signs of a Smokey Brown cockroach infestation in the walls at some point in time.”

Good luck, everyone.


Hillsong worship leader clarifies he hasn't renounced faith, but it's on 'incredibly shaky ground'. (Christian Post)

“Why is the Bible full of contradictions? No one talks about it. How can God be love yet send four billion people to a place, all ‘coz they don’t believe? No one talks about it,” he wrote.

For me, moving from conservative evangelicalism, to liberal theology, and then to atheism, has allowed me to process my departure more effectively. Reading liberal theology helped frame the Bible, theodicy, and culture in a much more generous way before it eventually gave out as well. Sounds like Sampson is doing a cliff dive. And reading more about his journey, he keeps deleting Instagram posts challenging Christianity. Why? 🤷🏻‍♂️

I used to love Hillsong's music a lot. And I remember watching Marty (and Joel and Darlene) lead worship on their DVDs with awe and envy. Then things started to fall apart when I realized Brian Houston essentially preached a prosperity gospel, their lyrics promoted an individuistic Christianity, and my disdain for megachurches and high-production worship services started to increase.


The Ways We Watch (Washington Post)

Now, we watch “television” on our cellphones. We stream movies on computer screens and through video-game consoles. We invite people over to Netflix and chill, and that has nothing to do with watching TV...

...After endless debate, we’ve landed on the 11 types of “television” viewers who exist in our brave new world. Which one are you?

Add a pinch of The Second Screener (Wikipedia's the best companion) and a dash of The Avid Reader, and you have me.

#fridayfinds