apropos of my sermon today

From Richard Watson’s new book, Future Minds: How the Digital Age Is Changing Our Minds, Why This Matters and What We Can Do About It:

Our decision-making abilities are at risk because we are too busy to consider alternatives properly or because our brains trip us up by fast-tracking new information. We become unable to exclude what is irrelevant and retain an objective view on our experience, and we start to suffer from what Fredric Jameson, a U.S. cultural and political theorist, calls “culturally induced schizophrenia.”

The full article is here. (h/t Andrew Sullivan)

Wake Up! Advent I, Year A

November 28, 2010

“Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme. Der Waechter sehr hoch auf der Zinne. Wach auf du stadt Jerusalem.” Today is the first Sunday of Advent and for me, Advent must begin with that Bach chorale, with the words by Philip Nicolai. We will sing them at the 10:00 service today—in English, of course. It’s not simply that this is a favorite hymn of mine, or that it’s an Advent hymn. No, this is one of those cases where the hymn writer expresses beautifully one of the key themes of the season. Continue reading