anyway, stay woke.

i don't really know how to introduce this one, but here are some late night reflections after the killing of charlie kirk open.substack.com/pub/joshuabo...

I cried out, "Violence!"

Reflections in the wake of the killing of Charlie Kirk

open.substack.com

roots are where the mycelium runs

drinking wine from a whiskey glass sounds like a bad lyric from a song i would have liked in the early 2000s, but it is what i'm doing right now.

New post on staying faithful in unfaithful places. joshuabocanegra.substack.com/p/surviving-...

Surviving church in the United States

Faithful presence in unjust times

joshuabocanegra.substack.com

For Mary Oliver If, when the sunset finally finds me, I have written anything half as buzzing with the life of earth, half as soaked through with firefly light, I'll have done a good for the soil of the world. O Mary, full of grace, forever praying from these white leaves pray for me now.

i think millennials gave western beauty standards a run for their money, but the rise of ultra-conservatism is bringing it right back to its reigning status as the norm, left, liberal, conservative, and right.

not to be on my leftist bullshit, but generations of black and brown singers were transgressive, sexual, and hated so that sabrina carpenter could be cute, sexy, and the queen of soft girls.

people will be like, "women pastors are making the church liberal," all the while ignoring our pastors and leaders that are abusing women and children in all kinds of horrendous ways.

call me joe cause i'm sleepy

New post with more reflections on writing poetry and theology. open.substack.com/pub/joshuabo...

Truth Telling

The theologian who writes poetry, or the poet who writes theology?

open.substack.com

Modern humanity's denial of awareness in nonhuman nature is born not by any conceptual or scientific rigor, but rather by an inability, or a refusal, to fully perceive other organisms. David Abram The Spell of the Sensuous

thinking about that time i had to read a book in seminary entitled "a thicker jesus"

i have questions, you have answers. 1. what constitutes a human being (what parts make up a human)? 2. what is a spirit? 3. what is a soul? 4. what is a body? 5. what's the difference between soul and spirit?

This morning the water lilies are no less lovely, I think, than the lilies of Monet. And I do not want anymore to be useful, to be docile, to lead children out of the fields into the text of civility, to teach them that they are (they are not) better than the grass. ~ Mary Oliver

Our life, our need to make meaning from it, is all a kind of blindness. Christian Wiman Zero at the Bone

The workers unite not merely to redistribute wealth but to suture estranged spheres of activity and reconnect life with work, workers with one another, production with need, humans with the powers they have unleashed in the world. Wendy Brown Foreword to Capital, by Marx

From small shops, family farms, and cities to gigantic industries, massive rain forests, and even states, everything capital makes or needs it will eventually also destroy. Wendy Brown From her forward to the new translation of Marx's Capital

spotify is down because i was listening to the new single from m.i.a. too much

sometimes i wish i didn't grow up as such a "good christian" because of the way it ingrained in me this obsession with being correct. it hampers, i think, my courage to be creative.

We lived with three kinds of windows: transparencies that pulled in light; electronic screens that gave off light; and paintings that lived on light. Alice Fulton feeling as a foreign language

abebooks emails are like, "you can have 20% off if you spend $50," and i'm like, "if i was looking to spend $50 (or $40 with the discount), i wouldn't be on abebooks dot com

New post about why I'm a little hesitant about all these new men coming to church. open.substack.com/pub/joshuabo...

Men at Church

Why the return of young men to church gives me pause

open.substack.com

For while there is jealousy and among you, are you not in the flesh, and behaving like ordinary people? 1 Corinthians 3:3

I hate the antichrist! I hate the antichrist! I hate the antichrist!

Kai Ryssdal@kairyssdal.bsky.social · last yr.

Burn it all down "Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth led a Christian prayer service in the Pentagon’s auditorium on Wednesday morning, during working hours, in which President Trump was praised as a divinely appointed leader."

yes, i know google exists, but i'm trying my damndest to not give away any more human community to a computer.

I really peaked with this one

The idolatry of science that surrounds us now is a symptom of superstition and not, as the scientists argue, a remedy for it. Christian Wiman Zero at the Bone

The beast will tolerate no dissent from his self-deification. Richard Bauckham The Theology of the Book of Revelation

The more significant critique [from Revelation] is the critique of the church, and specifically of its participation in the idolatry of the imperial cult, the civil or national religion. Will these churches repent? Michael Gorman Reading Revelation Responsibly