Jeremiah Lepasana

I try to better understand the stuff of belief. Husband to Juliana. Dad to E + E.

Pastor, City Chapel NYC of the C&MA.

[Jeremiah Lepasana @_jlepasana]

“Joy’s trick is to supply
Dry lips with what can cool and slake,
Leaving them dumbstruck also with an ache
Nothing can satisfy.“ - Wilbur

[Michael Barbaro @mikiebarb]

I won't click on this story (a $100 hot dog?)
I won't click on this story (a $100 hot dog?)
I won't click on this story (a $100 hot dog?)
CLICKS ON STORY.....

[G. K. Chesterton @GKCdaily]

The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

[Julian Gerson @julian__gerson]

This was a love letter from @NYCMayor to the city we all love - a city where everyone is welcome, where everyone can play, where everyone can win.

What an amazing day, what an amazing team, what an amazing run. No New Yorker will ever forget what this Knicks team meant to us.

[Julian Gerson @julian__gerson]

@cbutt @NYCMayor Full transcript here - hope your students enjoy it.

https://t.co/ahbmfM9o9e

[Eugenia Kuyda @ekuyda]

I’ve been thinking about this David Foster Wallace quote more and more recently

“The technology is just gonna get better and better and better and better. And it's gonna get easier and easier, and more and more convenient, and more and more pleasurable to be alone with images on a screen, given to us by people who do not love us but want our money. Which is all right. In low doses, right? But if that's the basic main staple of your diet, you're gonna die. In a meaningful way, you're going to die."

[Jeremiah Lepasana @_jlepasana]

@0xParam Great and helpful thread.

[Dustin Messer @dustinwmesser]

Dale Ralph Davis on the message of Jonah: "God doesn't just want a successful mission, he wants a sanctified missionary."

[Alissa Wilkinson @alissamarie]

The only time Joan Didion really gave advice, it was pretty good advice. Some excerpts from a 1975 commencement speech at UC Riverside:

[Jeremiah Lepasana @_jlepasana]

@GraySutanto @0xParam I might have to re-take this class the next couple of days for the fellowship

[Jeremiah Lepasana @_jlepasana]

@0xParam 🫡

[Jordan Temple @jordyploy]

I grew up in NYC and wrote an episode of the tv show 'Atlanta' (ep. 307) inspired by this, it's called 'Trini 2 De Bone'.

It's about a white family that goes to the funeral of their Trini nanny, only to discover their son, Sebastian is not their own, but Trinidadian.

[Jeremiah Lepasana @_jlepasana]

@jordyploy one of the great episodes — ever

[NBC Olympics & Paralympics @NBCOlympics]

WHAT A COMEBACK FROM QUINCY HALL! 😱

He wins GOLD in the men's 400m. #ParisOlympics

[Jeremiah Lepasana @_jlepasana]

"...when best of them practice their craft, they remind us of how high we used to fly, but now that we are earthbound (and subterranean), limited in our vista. The arts somehow makes us, yes even us, to long for such a world of splendor which we chose to leave behind."

[Makoto Fujimura @iamfujimura]

Dear Wormwood

We managed a frenzy of attention from “The Last Supper” (a painting I despise and I refuse to understand) controversy during the Olympics. Well done. You incited, as planned, many so called “Christians” who think their “faith” is all about being offended by the world we control. The more we can agitate them, even to use violence and destructive means as a way to show grievances, the better. Mixing in our Bacchus feast to confuse them was your most brilliant touch. That will be written into our annals of most clever (uncreative) acts.

What was truly a delight to me, my dear Wormwood, was to see how this issue detracted from the actual competitions which requires so much discipline and training. Our Enemy’s playbook is filled with such allusions which we have tried to copy. But, as you know, we have yet to fully capitalize on what these athletes attain in discipline. This will require further research. You may think that the Enemy delights in seeing hard work and artistry, but we can also turn that spectacle into the device of ego for our purposes.

What our subjects call “the arts” are so full of potential and yet so dangerous for us! We need to make sure that artists are filled with anger, so much so that they forget that their gifts given to them can create works that are the most excruciatingly blinding to us. When I even think about the aforementioned work, I shudder and am filled with incomprehensible despair. Why is that? Well, it seems that when best of them practice their craft, they remind us of how high we used to fly, but now that we are earthbound (and subterranean), limited in our vista. The arts somehow makes us, yes even us, to long for such a world of splendor which we chose to leave behind.

Inciting to cause cultural havoc has been an easy playbook. Do not get used to using the same tricks. Keep them focused on the past glories to defend, rather than future hopes. You and I are not capable to see the future as they do. Artists can cause much trouble for us, and their gift, especially with discipline, is the hardest to tame. Yet, as you’ve done many times successfully, artists are so easily tempted into despair with their open hearts. Artists see with the Light which blinds us, and are capable of creating a new vista which our minds cannot bear. That’s why we need to keep reminding them the impracticality of being an artist. It is impossible to be an artist (keep whispering that into their ears)! That lie has worked so well I wonder if they don’t realize that the Enemy is the only true Artist.

Your Affectionate Uncle,

Screwtape (2024 #theologyofmaking version)

[Jeremiah Lepasana @_jlepasana]

@GraySutanto @RTSWashington @ReformTheoSem Massive congratulations to you!

[Jeremiah Lepasana @_jlepasana]

"He will test us over and over again on whose approval we will seek. It’s easy to not seek the approval of those outside our camp but, when it comes to our identity group, whomever that may be, the stakes are much higher."

[Beth Moore @BethMooreLPM]

I’ve been thinking a good bit about this over the last week. I don’t recall ever realizing those tweets had been deleted. But I would not have been surprised and I want to try to succinctly say why. Josh and Jana and the church staff could not possibly have been more gracious or welcoming and, for that matter, fun. I loved them all. I loved their congregation.

What I think probably happened is that he and they got so hammered for having me, it wasn’t worth leaving them up. I think about this often, what a liability I can be. I’m much more careful now to only speak where that group or leader has already gone on public record with where they stand doctrinally. Otherwise, they so often end up being sorry they had me and I hate that.

I want to speak only to this one thing. Until you’ve experienced the hammering and harassment of the hyper fundamentalist, one may think and even boast that he or she couldn’t care less what people say and that you’re your own man/woman but then you get tested to such a degree that you then know why all those people have bowed to it.

I need you guys reading this to practice a little nuance here because I’m only speaking to this one thing: the effective of hammering. Rare is the one who will not be beaten into submission by it. They are simply too powerful and it’s just not worth it in the end.

I’ll say lastly that we are all tested on this and not just once. God makes sure of it. He will test us over and over again on whose approval we will seek. It’s easy to not seek the approval of those outside our camp but, when it comes to our identity group, whomever that may be, the stakes are much higher.

We all need Jesus so much.

[Simon Sarris @simonsarris]

@JamesClear "Now, there is a law written in the darkest of the Books of Life, and it is this: If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in frightful danger of seeing it for the first time."

[Scott Sauls @scottsauls]

Once in our world, a Stable had something in it that was bigger than our whole world.
- C.S. Lewis

[C.S. Lewis Institute @CSLIChicago]

"To walk out of His will is to walk into nowhere."
⏤ C.S. Lewis, Perelandra #CSLI