Tag Archives: reading

Legit Devorator

Posted on by under Uncategorized

Read. More. Books.

reading books

twilightbeta on DeviantArt (Link)

The other day[1] I was walking from my coffee shop (it’s not mine but I’m very proud of it so I say “my” in the same way I call Everton “we”) to the library, and on the way I stopped by a recently-opened bookstore. I was curious to see what was there, and while I have plenty on my reading list, I had just finished Annihilation that morning and was looking for something new to start, and one never knows what someone might find on sale.

I didn’t find anything to purchase, but my ignorance of what I would find was well-met. The store is in a mall of sorts – a dimly lit building unit downtown that used to be home to offices for the town’s giant shipbuilding company, but which is now partitioned into a handful of spaces for a hodge-podge of businesses which rarely succeed. It’s like a really sad bazaar.

There were a few shelves of new and used books, magazines, and comic books, with plenty of room for more inventory. There were also some model train sets – which I had really, really not expected. Being one of just two customers in the store, I was soon accosted by the proprietor, who gave me a thorough sales pitch on the shop and its merits, one I must assume he gives to everyone who stumbles in. He informed invited strongly suggested I come to a card game event at the store later that night. As I browsed the sparse bookshelves, I understood why he had made such a point about their willingness to do special orders. And, while I browsed, he mentioned to me and to the other customer that – if we were thirsty – the store had soda on sale. Because of course it did.

I wanted to buy a book to support the store, but I couldn’t find one that fit the bill. Slightly embarrassed that I had spent so much time browsing every single shelf only to come up empty, I headed for the exit, but not before the proprietor gave me a business card and reminded me about the game night[2].

I tell this story not just because I think people should always recount tales of their journeys to strange places, but because it was a vivid nexus for the thoughts about reading that have been pinging around in my head for a few days. I had been doing a lot of reading, some writing, and a little reading about reading, and I was hoping to do some writing about reading[3]. I had actually been trying to wrangle some of those thoughts into writing at the coffee shop, but was not having much success, in part because each angle I took crumbled into a ruinous heap of generica echoing with cries of “reading is good you should do it” and I didn’t know if I started sorting through the wreckage if I would find something that was really worthwhile.

But my visit to the bookstore was another reminder – made potent by immediacy – that reading is good and you should do it. I don’t think I would be friends with the shop owner. I don’t think I would hang out with him (I didn’t go to the game night, for those of you holding your breath in suspense). I’m not about model trains and he wasn’t carrying anything I was particularly interested in buying. But we were both there, in that sad little mall, approximately a million miles from the rest of civilization, because reading means something to us – enough to enter into a dying industry or walk into a strange building. And if reading can mean that much and bring the two of us together in that space at that time, then it’s worth trying to articulate these erratic thoughts of mine.

While reading has always been important to me, that importance has increased over the last few months. Evenings alone during the school year tended to be anxious times, and I made a decision to spend the last hour or so before bed reading books rather than watching Netflix. And so I did it – I actually started reading for fun on top of all the reading I had to do as a graduate student. Now that school is over, I have re-entered the ranks of the voracious readers. It helps me fill the hours in a time of transition, a transition which includes a crossroads in my writing. I am writing regularly, but not as much as I would like, and hardly at all on this here website of mine. At times it is easier to just return to my book rather than search for words of my own. This transition is also a time of identity-building, which I alluded to in my last post, and reading is part of my attempt to make up for what feels like lost time. For, while I remained interested in books, I really didn’t read very much in high school or college besides what I had to do for class (which was a lot and often included novels, being an English Major).

This lamentable dearth of reading experience is coupled with my personal quest to increase my geek. For, while I am and have been a geek, there are some very underdeveloped aspects of my nerdiness, and during my formative years it never really defined me or my social interactions, and I often chose to keep it under wraps. My personality was so dominated by sports: playing sports, watching sports, playing sports video games, writing about sports, talking about sports. I’m still a big sports fan (albeit in a very different sort of way), but now I am putting serious effort into becoming the geek I was always meant to be. And geeks read.

As is often the case, this personal change has coincided with an increasing awareness and involvement with others who are also doing a lot of reading. I am a fan of the podcast Binge Mode, and I continue to listen even as they turn their deep-diving attention to the Harry Potter books, of which I’ve only read the first two. Mallory and Jason are a delight to listen to, and part of the reason for this is their infectious love of reading. Their defense of fantasy – while inspired by Game of Thrones – is clearly based in their love of books.

I notice with what seems like increased frequency people posting this or that about reading on social media, and right now on my feed there’s a book cover sharing thing going on. Sometimes it seems like “no one” reads anything besides online articles anymore, but these posts and conversations online remind me that people are reading, and they put my reading into a social context of discussions and recommendations.

Speaking of book recommendations: they are great. There is a moment in Game of Thrones where Samwell enters the library at the Citadel for the first time[4]. Faced with this unfathomable amount of books, Sam the bibliophile is clearly pleased, but also awed and daunted. Where is he to begin? Which books will he have to neglect? Choosing the next book to read can feel like this, but getting a personal recommendation can help us go forth and read without worrying about what we aren’t reading. It’s even better when someone gives or lends you a book, and so, looking for a new fantasy novel to read and overwhelmed by the choices, I was happy to take on the 1,000 pages of Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings when my friend handed me his copy after bringing it up in conversation the day before.

Now’s the part where I turn this on you. I beseech you to read. You’re reading this, and that’s great – thank you – but read some books when you are done. Please trust me and my reading friends when I tell you to do it. And, if you do read, read more. Talk to others about reading. Share recommendations. Share books.

Reading books is good for you, as this article from the New Yorker explains so well. It is not mere escapism, even if it can help relieve the stresses of our lives. It is not anti-social, even if it is something we usually do alone. I know you’re busy. Really, I do. But you can find the time. My unsolicited advice: start by reading books instead of – not in addition to – some social media posts and online articles. I’m not asking you to ignore the world’s problems or be uninformed or stop supporting any sneaky good bloggers out there – far from it – but consider the amount of manic whirling your brain does as you speed-read 1,000 tweets, scan a few comment sections, glance at headlines and first paragraphs of daily news, and skim a couple of articles (one from your echo chamber which makes you feel invincible and one from the other side which makes you hopping mad). Perhaps this doesn’t apply to you, but many of us (me included) spend way too much time looking at our phones. Slow down, focus your mind, be present, and immerse yourself in an extended text. This is Tao.

Sure, reading takes time and it’s possible to read too much and not all books are created equal. But I sincerely believe that more reading of books has the capacity to make us better people, and the benefits of reading are in many ways well-suited to the particular ailments of the contemporary moment.

We’re way into summer already, and maybe you haven’t made the desired dent in your summer reading list. That’s okay. Start now. And if you don’t get to it until the leaves change color, okay. Start then. Try it, please. Even if you didn’t grow up with Reading Rainbow and Between the Lions, even if your elementary school teachers didn’t instill an interest in you, even if your parents didn’t buy you books (thank you, Mom and Dad), it’s not too late to pick it up now. There are entire worlds out there, and in exploring them you may just come to understand this one a little better. You’ll develop yourself too. And, along the way, you will come into contact with others who are spending their time the same way.

And as you walk out of their strange little store into fresh air and natural light, you can smile knowing it’s for good reason that your paths crossed.

Forth now, and fear no darkness.

Soli Deo Gloria

-Peter

Notes

1 As opposed to what? Why do we say “the other day?” Is this a colloquialism, or is it a useful distinction? And why don’t I just tell you which day it was? It was July 23, 2018.
2  If you’re in the area, please, please visit Other Worlds Books & More at Park Place Plaza on 3rd Avenue and see if you can find a way to support your local bookstore.
3 The one I haven’t done recently is reading about writing. I have done a fair amount of that though. Douglas Wilson has a lot of very trash opinions and he is kind of a jerk, but he wrote a good book about writing called Wordsmithy. Stephen King’s On Writing is worthwhile. But most of all I suggest Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird.
4 There are a number of great moments about reading and stories in Game of Thrones. Of course there’s the famous “Why do you read so much?” exchange between Jon and Tyrion, but so much good stuff with Sam and I love Bran’s openness to the idea of the blue-eyed giant.

Travelling the Uncharted Self

Posted on by under Culture, General Articles, Poems

This is one of the most pretentious things I’ve ever done as a blogger (although I used to be kind of a jerk in my nascent sports-blogging stages (“Boom! Eat it Merril Hoge! My pick for Offensive ROY just went HAM and chucked for a debut record 422 yards” (I am so embarrassed that I ever wrote something like that (but I’ve done worse (in writing (and real life too (I guess))))))). And, actually, I’m realizing that the pretentious thing could have been using seven parentheses and banking on you continuing to read. Pardon.

No, the pretentious thing I’m going to do is start this blog post with a poem that I wrote sometime last autumn:

Like a River

There’s a space inside a man which
runs like a river through mountains.
It flows from the sidereal heath
and travels a landscape of virile solitude.
It is breathtaking –
what a man finds when he can walk
within himself –
who can find his way into the halcyon valley
and take in the expanse of the starry night.
To see the mountains proud and cold,
to see the mud languishing in the
foul water that pools in ponds of neglect
and feel the sparkling stream steadily wash it clean.
What it must be to see the height and breadth
of this meandering path running from the gleaming void
to the tossing sea
where other rivers
deposit the story of a soul.

Even as I click “copy” and “paste” questions linger about whether or not you care about my poem or if it will help you to see what this post is about. And, even as I write this, I’m not certain of where this post is going – it’s actually one of the most organic posts I’ve done in a long time. I’ve been writing quite a lot, but not material for blogging. So, in a way that I haven’t always, I’m writing a blog because I want to, not because I feel I need to.

But I begin with the poem because I’m finding that, while I still believe everything I put into it, I’ve come to even better understand the pictures that I tried to paint. I’ve lived these truisms in ways I hadn’t when I first translated these ideas into a stanza.

The poem can mean a lot of things, which are not my present intention to demonstrate, but the poem is partially about where, spatially speaking, a human being exists. Yes, the Ship of Theseus that we call the self appears to occupy only one finite location in a physical body at any time – right now my 5’11” frame is seated at my desk. But if you’re reading this, then you know that where you exist is hardly limited to wherever your own Ship of Theseus might be moored, as writing and reading is an act of telepathy (ht Stephen King). In some sense, you’re existing in my mind. Or consider that just as your physical body might stand in line at the DMV until 2:18, you might find yourself in a virtual line for tickets to Hamilton that extends to 2018.

The space we occupy is much more mutable and much less defined than the physical space our bodies occupy. This space that we live in is a view within ourselves but also a boulevard to the spaces we share, metaphysically, with our fellow humans. That’s part of what writing the poem revealed to me, and in the recent months I’ve learned that all the more, and these meditations have been spurred on and guided by a variety of teachers.

First, my physical place in the world for the time being has put me in a rather unusual, and often uncomfortable, sea of consciousness. I graduated in December, and I’m going back to school (somewhere) for a Master’s degree next autumn. But, for the time being, I’m living at home. This unfamiliar territory is an unstable terrain that removes me from parts of my identity that I have grown accustomed to – I am not a student right now, I’m removed from the lives of my closest friends, I’m an “only child” for the first time, I see both my parents every day, the infrequency with which I’m substitute teaching hardly qualifies me as a working person, and, although I have a plan for what I will do next autumn, I have only heard back from one of the eight schools to which I applied, meaning that my future status as a student, friend, son, and employee is in a state of flux.

Mentally and emotionally, this makes me feel much more removed than even my physical state of being would designate. My close friend studying in England feels a world away – my friends at school feel only a little closer. Future schooling and work are so diaphanous even in rose-tinted lenses, as I am employed but hardly working, and in line to enter school but waiting on decisions.

All of this makes this time between schooling a time in which it is challenging to form my identity and just as tough to express it. Which is, I suppose, one reason I’m writing this post.

But there’s a yin to every yang. As my physical state has remained isolated and removed, and as my identity has lost or modified some of its significant traits, I have roamed far and wide among the constellations of the mind. I spend my day with ideas. I read (books, tweets, and online articles) and I observe (talk radio, music, debates, TV events, and the like) and I think and I write. And the space we share mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, can be a breathtaking space with a power to define as strong as our physical location. When I read Quiet by Susan Caine, I connected so directly with what she wrote about introverts that it made me like myself more as a person, and I have such profound gratitude for what she wrote that I almost feel like Susan is one of my friends now. Or, for another example, when I read The Souls of Black Folk, I found Du Bois’ ideas so powerful and so accurate, and so affirming in my interests and studies, it was like he had sent the book from 1903 directly to me to read. Books, TV, and the internet have pooled their resources with my mind, and each day I find myself so much a part of this human experience, removed as I am for the time being. My meditations explore these tributaries and my writing is one way in which my experience is given life.

These uncertain spaces have formed a symbiotic relationship with my spirituality as well, and once again I find the doctrine of election to be one of the most stunning attributes of God (admittedly, it causes me some angst as well, but that is a separate issue for now). I believe that God chose me before I was born (Galatians 1:15) for salvation, but also to have a purpose in life. Whether or not God controls everything I will do, I don’t know, and frankly I think too much ink is spilled pondering human free will. But I am sure, just as God planned for Paul to minister to the Gentiles, that God has a reason for calling me, and a way in which he intends to use me to glorify God and serve my neighbors. As God protected Paul against plots against his life to get him to Jerusalem, I believe God has a way in mind for me to love God and neighbor, and whatever the odds are God will see it done.

Whether you can relate or only imagine, that’s a tremendous thing to believe. But, like most Christian beliefs, it’s not something you can download into your mind like we’re plugged into the Matrix. It takes time to work through and accept. And, like most Christian beliefs, Christians always have some doubts. I’ve said that most Christians (me included) don’t actually believe they will go the heaven when they die – they do, but if they could 100% grasp and believe that they would be in heaven, they would live their lives so very differently on earth, wouldn’t they?

What this means is that living a purpose-driven life is tricky when you haven’t reached a place that seems to fit your idea of a “purpose.” I don’t think what I’m doing right now is my ultimate purpose – rather, I tend to think of “God’s plan for me” as being where I will be in, say, ten years. Then I will be doing God’s work, then I’ll be using my education to make the world a better place and glorify God. But that’s not a particularly comfortable or useful way to think. Because God has a purpose for me now, and tomorrow, and next week, just as much as ten and twenty years from now. But believe me – I wish I was doing what I’ll be doing in ten years now. That’s the work I want to do today. This attitude makes it easy to punt away spiritual work, going days at a time with little thought for God. But I’ve learned over the past couple years that ignoring daily excellence is one of the worst things a person can do (I wrote about this last year and you can follow up on that later if you wish, here).

Recently, I began to think myself very wise in the ways of theology, scripture, and spirituality. I began to think myself quite holy and righteous. But what I started to lose sight of was the way in which we must constantly turn to God, even if it means re-hearing an old truth or re-reading a letter of Paul yet again. But the truth is that, even if the words in the Bible remain the same, the truths evolve – not that they are subject to our understanding, but rather that, at each stage of our lives, the same words may be breathed in and breathed out in a different manner that attends to our situation in life while calling us to be more like Jesus every day. And even if you know everything there is to know, the way to be more like Jesus is going to be different from time to time, depending on where you are on your journey. Thus, I must continue to preach to myself.

Okay, so I know that probably felt tangential, but my musings on the bundled self, identity, and Christian living do all amount to more than an entry in my diary that you may or may not care about.

What I’m seeing is a failure for people to embrace the mutability and connectedness of our existence, choosing instead to label others and label themselves in ways that don’t make sense. When we see our soul flowing from the sidereal heath through our halcyon valleys and into the commingled sea of souls, then we can better understand ourselves and better understand and love each other, and we can move past the things that divide and conquer us.

Concerning Peyton Manning, Dan LeBatard is right: why can’t it all be true that Peyton did horrible things, Peyton is now a good guy, the journalist is not credible, the journalist has an agenda, the story is true, this doesn’t have to be about race, but yet this is about race? Those things can all be true. Why does someone find themselves saying that Peyton is totally absolved and Shaun King is a race-baiting devil?

Concerning Cam Newton’s press conference: It’s true that he should have acted differently, but can’t we all understand why he would act that way? Can’t we be fine with what he did, and try to empathize, yet still say he was wrong?

Concerning Kanye West: why does he have to be a crazy douchebag or a peerless artist? Why one or the other? Can’t we treat him like a person who’s on a journey like all of us, and say that his album, while not a masterpiece, is still pretty damn good? Can’t we appreciate the nuances that come with him and with his work?

Feeling the need to label ourselves and others inevitably leads to incorrect and overbearing labels that unnaturally warp our thinking, and in no place is this more obvious than this thing going on called the 2016 Presidential election. Fam – I fully believe that the two-party system in American politics is one of the most harmful things for our culture, our government, and our society. It creates extremism. Compromise and bipartisanship is a sham – usually when someone says that’s what they want, what they really mean is they want people on the other side of the aisle to agree with them. And this dichotomy of liberal:conservative makes people think some pretty unnatural things.

Conservatives have an overwhelmingly negative response to Beyoncé, Kendrick, DeRay, and just about anything related to race, especially when it comes to #BlackLivesMatter. Somehow it became a part of conservatism, and it is really disturbing to see the ways that conservatives predictably buck against any sort of racial protest or the suggestion that there is systemic racism, even though there is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a serious race problem in this country. Conservatives find other labels to disparage as well, SOCIALISM being one of the most prominent. So rather than consider the merits of Democratic Socialism, conservatives discredit the ideology altogether, trampling all of the good things liberalism can bring to the social inequality workbench. In short: conservatives contort their minds to oppose things that are new, different, strange, or uncomfortable. And that’s a problem, no?

Liberals aren’t faultless either. Perhaps in particular is the liberal tendency to bash Christianity. Yes, there is a marriage between Christianity and the GOP that makes me uncomfortable, and yes, Christians often conflate religious liberty with religious supremacy. But the caricature that liberals draw up of sexist, homophobic, racist, selfish Christians is unfair, and brings to an end helpful discussions about abortion and what it truly means to be “pro-life,” or what it really means for a Christian to “hate the sin and love the sinner” or how defeating ISIS is different from defeating Islam. Some people say some pretty bold stuff about gay rights and reproductive rights that, I think, upon further review, don’t make sense. But, because someone identifies as “liberal,” they feel the need to turn into a lemming and run off the cliff to get away from being conservative. In short: liberals charge ahead at unsustainable speeds, desperate to be unlike the close-minded people of the past. And that’s risky, no?

Why can’t a conservative support the teacher’s union and environmental protection? Why can’t a liberal be pro-life and opposed to gun control?

Too many people have never learned to think for themselves, and it’s because their insistence on taking sides and fabricating labels clouds their knowledge of the self and sets up roadblocks on our common boulevards of existence. We look to cues from thought leaders and ideologies and trending topics for guidance, forcing ourselves into labels and bending our perception of ourselves and our perception of others into something that is unnatural and unhelpful. You exist someplace that is so much more free than the temporal entrenchment that you’ve assumed.

Since this post of loosely-related parts somewhat resembles The Life of Pablo, I guess I will, 2500 words in, finish with a reflection on a Kanye song. I think these ideas that I’ve been kicking around in this post rather clumsily appear, in some form, in Kanye West’s song “Real Friends.” They’ve been ruthless in keeping that song off of YouTube, but here’s a 30 second preview on Tidal if you haven’t heard it.

People tend to take friends for granted. Or, at least, people don’t think critically about what friendship really means and what it means to be a real friend or have real friends. In our insatiable need for labeling, we find ourselves satisfied with acquiring “friends,” just as we call ourselves a student, spouse, employee, male, female, etc etc. But “How many of us are real friends/To real friends, ’til the reel end/’Til the wheels fall off, ’til the wheels don’t spin,” Kanye asks. But it’s a two-way street: “Who your real friends? We all came from the bottom/I’m always blamin’ you, but what’s sad, you not the problem.” Kanye is questioning whether or not he has real friends, and also whether or not he is a real friend.

What makes this message and this song so potent, besides the stellar production (love the piano sample), is that this comes from the type of introspective and self-deprecating voice that so many people seem to think Kanye doesn’t have. He isn’t bragging about being a deadbeat cousin, hating family reunions, and spilling wine at communion – he’s criticizing himself for it. He’s coming from a dark place on this one, and in that same dark place he voices frustration over his cousin stealing his laptop and holding it for ransom, and laments the loss of friends since becoming famous.

This is one of the things that makes Kanye great – when he puts himself into this metaphyscial space in such an honest and heartfelt way, you find yourself there too, even if you can’t relate to everything he’s talking about. I’m not famous. I’ve never had my laptop stolen. I’ve taken communion many times, but have so far avoided making a scene. But, listening to this song, I can’t help but think about what kind of friend I am, and who my real friends are. I can’t help but think about if I’m a good son and a good brother, and if my family’s always been good to me. It is well to consider those things, and in this case it doesn’t happen if Kanye doesn’t put himself in that space or if I put Kanye in a box he doesn’t belong in or if I deny myself the song based on what I think of that kind of music.

I think what I just said about “Real Friends” makes sense and fits into this post, but to be totally honest I just really wanted to talk about that song because I like it so much.

I’ll leave you with this: seek that place that is removed from your physical position. Do not be bound to a finite location. Challenge what you think you know. Rebel against the labels that society wants to put on you, and be careful which labels you claim for yourself. Your heart and soul and mind exist someplace that your body can never be. Explore that place. Know yourself. And when you find a fellow human there, embrace their journey, knowing their sandals are just as worn as yours.

Forth now, and fear no darkness.

Soli Deo Gloria

-Peter

Picking up the Pieces

Posted on by under General Articles

ebenezer-rock

I can’t say I exactly know what to call this post. It’s too general and unimportant to be an open letter, too weary to be a re-birth, too modest to be a manifesto, and too refined to be a personal confession. It’s not just a space-filler, considering it’s been over a month since I’ve posted on the blog, and it’s not just “another” post about sports. I suppose it’s a notice of things to come, in anticipation of what will happen, forged by what’s happened, impacting what’s happening.

Around this time last year I decided that I was going to try to post something on  the blog close to every day. And I failed. Miserably. I wrote consistently for a couple weeks but it didn’t take long for me to give up on the venture.

A year later and I’ve received numerous reiterations of the all-important message for aspiring writers: write. A lot. I can’t ignore this forever if I ever want to really take writing seriously. I have to commit to the craft. And while my schoolwork has had me writing quite a lot, I’m still not at the daily recommended word diet (reading or writing) and classwork only lasts for so long.

So I’m going to try again. Really. I’m committing to writing something every day. That’s not to say something will be posted every day, as some days I might write part of a longer work to be posted later, or I may write something that is never meant to be on the blog (like, pipedreaming, a book). But something will get posted regularly. Maybe about sports, maybe not. Maybe a long post, maybe a short poem. Various and sundry might be the words for it.

This shift is coming for a number of reasons beyond the need to write prolifically. On the micro level, I’m still trying to make sense of the crater that exists in the wake of Wisconsin vs. Kentucky, and the aftershock that resulted in Wisconsin vs. Duke. A model for what was supposed to happen in college basketball existed, and an ICBM called Sam Dekker’s Step-Back blasted it into oblivion. Future events in basketball, at the collegiate and professional levels, changed dramatically from what was supposed to happen. It was one of those things in sports that makes you just sit and ponder at a loss for meaning.

We are also approaching the start of the NBA Playoffs, one of my most favorite sporting events. Night after night the fray plays out as we move through April and May towards the Finals. I’ll be watching a lot of this, occasionally nudging aside homework, sleep, and a social life, and I’m sure to have thoughts on this, and these thoughts may not be the kind of big picture narratives I typically spend time writing on. If I’m writing daily, that gives me more liberty to just scribble down a few thoughts on the way Anthony Davis defies logic.

On the macro level, this is a product of the changing world around me, the way I perceive it, and the ways in which I interact with it.

I don’t plan on being a sportswriter anymore. I love writing and I love sports, but the field of sports journalism is not for me. If you know me, you know that chasing down leads, putting myself out there, and working in a fast-paced deadline-driven environment are not my cups of tea. That’s not a career I want to pursue just so one day I can write columns that get re-tweeted a thousand times in an hour.

Am I still going to write about sports? Yes. And, if someone is willing to pay me to write about them on my own terms, I would jump at the opportunity.

Whether or not sports are involved, I will be a part of the writing process. I’m not sure what I want to do just yet, but it turns out that English is one of the most versatile majors out there. As one of my mentors said, “The better question with English is not what CAN you do, but what CAN’T you do.” Once upon a time I was disappointed that my college did not have a Journalism Major, but now I see how that has worked out for the better for me.

I am also finding, as I continue my studies, that I care about many things beyond sports, and that there are numerous things that can be and should be written about outside the sports world. That’s not at all to say that sports are not important or that social and cultural issues cannot be addressed through sports, but I don’t think I want to put all of my eggs into the athletics basket. And, if you follow my work, you know that I have already started to bring a balance to the content of my works.

The world is not so simple for me as it was a few years ago. I hadn’t confronted my homophobia and sexism, and I had yet to really develop my Christian faith. I failed to see how narrow and idealistic my political views were. I wasn’t aware of ethnocentrism, political corruption, and botched military expeditions. I had never considered the racism simmering in my own heart and the heart of the nation. I had never heard of Tamir Rice, Akai Gurley, Eric Garner, John Crawford, Walter Scott, Trayvon Martin, or Ferguson.

And I’m still young. I’ve seen just a little of the world. I will continue to learn how to see through the eyes of others, and to understand what I’m doing or saying that’s wrong. I’ll continue to learn how to lean on God, and my political views will evolve. More troubling things will happen in my government and my culture. More people will die. New challenges will arise. I will read more and hear more and have my understanding of humans and this temporal world challenged many times over.

I will watch and listen and learn and take part. And I will sit and think and read and write. I will add my chapter to this anthology of human culture and thought, playing the bard as the locomotive of society rumbles on.

Which brings me to the rather unfortunate casualty of this change. I don’t think I can be the SneakyGoodSportsGuy anymore, nor do I think I can rightfully call this the SneakyGoodSportsBlog. I did what I set out to do in September of 2011: I cleared some space on the internet and filled it with some of my thoughts on sports. And, though I have taken extended breaks now and then, and the content has sometimes strayed from the world of sports, readers have known this site as a sports blog, and I have come to be known as a sports guy. More than once, someone has asked me of a current topic, “Well what does Mr. SportsGuy think?” And while I will always proudly bear the standard of sneakygood, as that prefix will always accurately describe me, I cannot contain my craft within this alter ego forever. If I am to stamp my name, however small, on the world of writing, it won’t say “SneakyGoodSportsGuy.” That’s just reality. And sooner or later I have to let the Daft Punk hidden identity thing go. It’s time to turn the page to the next chapter, bringing an end to the era of the SneakyGoodSportsBlog and the Guy who wrote it.

Thank you readers. Especially those who have been with me from the jump. Positive feedback has kept me going when I would have otherwise quit. Let’s keep living and reading and writing and loving and learning.

So, for the last time,

Thank you for reading, Soli Deo Gloria,

The SneakyGoodSportsGuy