Hello friends,
This past weekend I was blessed to be reunited with many, many friends at a conference known as Hutchmoot, the weekend event put on each year by The Rabbit Room. They haven’t had one of these weekends since 2019, so the goodwill, cheer, and hugs were at an all-time high.
Hutchmoot is a made-up word. It’s comprised of hutch (a home for rabbits) and moot (an extended conversation, as in Tolkein’s Entmoot). The fact that a made-up word has been embraced and embodied by the group gives you a good idea of what it’s like there.
The Part Where There’s an Essay: The Commandments of Social Media
Thou shalt treat other humans as image-bearers, regardless of their political affiliation or lack thereof.
Thou shalt interact with individual arguments or trains of thought and refrain from painting with a broad brush or setting up straw men.
Thou shalt refrain from using the words “always” or “never,” especially as regards the actions of thine opponents, political or otherwise.
Thou shalt give the same benefit of the doubt to one’s opponents that one awards oneself.
Thou shalt acknowledge that thou probably dost not have all the information.
Thou shalt not be passive-aggressive. If thou canst not speak directly to a person as regards a matter, thou shalt not be hedgy, shady, or otherwise indirectly aggressive and hope those individuals “get the message.”
Thou shalt represent the statements and opinions of another truthfully.
Thou shalt not pass on nor distribute on social media: gossip, uncharitable speculation, or insult.
Thou shalt be quick to name and publicize the virtues of actions of thine opponents -- political or otherwise -- whenever possible.
Thou shalt not “vent” publicly.
Thou shalt live one’s life in real time with three-dimensional people and have productive discussions in contexts that provide community and require accountability.
Thou shalt be quick to listen, slow to speak, quick to forgive.
Thou shalt recognize that it is the Lord Almighty who makes kings and nations rise and fall.
Thou shalt recognize thine own need for snacks, naps, and sunshine over and above thine own need for winning an argument (online or otherwise).
For the Anglophiles
A tearoom in Wales:
Reads & Listens of the Week
If you’re a baseball fan, you might enjoy this bit with Bill Simmons on Plain English. I never put it together before — the “Moneyball” approach to sports made other sports have more scoring. In baseball, of course, it caused less scoring.
Jared Wilson reminds us that Christmas is Bigger Than You Think. “The holidays don’t have to make us feel a certain way for the reality behind the shadows to still be at work in our lives.”
Some good advice from an old memoirist. Take it. Garrison Keillor on asking questions.
And as long as I’m on Garrison Keillor, here’s one of my favorite Lake Wobegon stories, entitled The Royal Family. It’s not what you think:
I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the one Nietzsche ridiculed as “God on the Cross.” In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? — John Stott