VERY discouraging day of writing and analysis. Super bummed 🫤 Buuuuut it’s part of the job description, right? Anyway, nursing my intellectual wounds with this #twoheartedale from #bellsbeer

“Kein gewisser gesetz kann man ihrinnen finden denn der liebe gesetz.” Martin Luther WA 11:278.32-33

...when we shift our perspective and see prayer as our first step and not our last (ditch) effort, we might find a way to push our activity beyond uttering “thoughts and prayers” and living it in the world to the wellbeing of the neighbor and to the glory of God. laurenrelarkin.com/2025/09/21/t...

As theodidacti through prayer, Christians are summoned to hear the silent cry and to respond by joining the divine revolution of life, love, and liberation for the beloved. Beloved, we pray first, and then we act for the wellbeing of the neighbor and to the glory of God.

This Christ's College Opening Lecture offered by @pgziegler.bsky.social was exactly what I needed this morning. It was so engaging, I forgot I was boiling water for tea...

To identify as a sinner is to posture oneself humbly in the world accepting your creaturely (i.e. non-God, non-divine) status, to confess your dependence on mercy and grace from God and others... laurenrelarkin.com/2025/09/14/s...

To identify as a sinner is to be able to identify as a creature who can’t and doesn’t get it right often and yet finds themselves addressed and accompanied, loved and accepted by God.

Me rn

"Babies at the Bar": Why the Roblox Situation is Part of the Disturbing Trend of Stealing ‘Being a Kid’ From Kids open.substack.com/pub/underthe...

To follow Christ means to be intractable when it comes to the kingdom of humanity’s tendency toward not only rejecting but violently attacking God’s reign in the world. laurenrelarkin.com/2025/09/07/c...

Like a sports car sold to someone suffering the malaise and banality of midlife, I was sold a saccharine Jesus, having little power and agency in the world because he was so conformed to it, embedded (buried?) in the ideas of yesteryear.

So, what does bring God glory? Jesus forever sets the answer to the question for us: making sure people are liberated from oppression (both spiritually and materially). This means, frankly, that we participate in the divine revolution of love, life, & liberation laurenrelarkin.com/2025/08/24/n...

What, in our lives, brings God glory? I’ll say two things up front: 1. It’s not what you think; and, 2. It’s harder than you think.

Okay socials, I need some help locating some articles. Do what you do best: LUTHER AND LYRA ON THE SONG OF SOLOMON: WERE THEY SINGING THE SAME TUNE? In:Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, Wint 1984By:Kiecker, James George

"It is clear, then, that this fear, which served originally as a safety device, a kind of protective mechanism for the weak, finally becomes death for the self. The power that saves turns exectuioner. Within the walls of separateness death keeps watch." Thurman, "Jesus and the Disinherited," 35-36

Some of us may take pride in our staunch positions of opposition against what we see to be the downfall of humanity. But we must be careful to discern whether it’s our pride causing divisions or God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation. laurenrelarkin.com/2025/08/17/n...

I know that by and through faith in Christ and by the resident power of the Holy Spirit in your heart anchoring you into God and God’s mission in the world each of us has been, is being, and will be asked to take steps into unknown territory that will cause divisions and divides ...

Want to know what my paper drafting looks like? After some preliminary introductory comments, I write: "THESIS BUILDING HERE what am I going to argue?..." And then I brainstorm/flow-of-thought an answer (while typing) ... like a journal entry. It's that rudimentary!

“Fitting in” is no longer applicable; standing out is expected, being reviled is expected, being persecuted, shunned, and ostracized by the citizens of the kingdom of humanity become the new normal for those who dare to follow Jesus ... laurenrelarkin.com/2025/08/10/g...

“Fitting in” is no longer applicable; standing out is expected, being reviled is expected, being persecuted, shunned, and ostracized by the citizens of the kingdom of humanity become the new normal for those who dare to follow Jesus out of the Jordan and head to the cross.

“In this way I understand this book to be about Solomon's state. If I am wrong about this, a first effort deserves lenience. The musings of others have a much larger share of absurdity.” This is how Luther closes his teaching on the Song of Solomon; it's both entertaining and absolutely fitting.

"For even adolescents are capable of hearing and speaking about young women without concupiscence if they regard them as God's creation. And the Holy Spirit has a chaste mouth and a pure heart" Luther negating "boys will be boys", at least for those claiming to be "Christian" 👀 LW 15:249

The Xian is the epicenter of the spiritual and temporal realms, working out their spirituality in the temporal realm while bringing the temporal needs of their neighbor into the spiritual realm through prayer [while] looking to and keeping eyes fixed on Christ. laurenrelarkin.com/2025/08/03/i...

We thrive when we ourselves in distinction from our temporal or spiritual allegiances, when we have a bit more alterity regarding our self-expression and self-determination, when we take a moment, catch our breath, and see and hear what’s needed in the moment.

Luther recommends that state leaders pray thusly, "Therefore, in accord with Solomon’s example, godly princes should pray and say: ‘O God, Creator and Governor of all, whom my soul loves, show me how the vineyard committed to me is to be tended, etc.’” LW 15:204

In our pursuit to make ourselves unique and irreplaceable through our work, we’ve made our work (the role, the job, the deed) the irreplaceable and not-interchangeable thing and made ourselves replaceable and interchangeable. laurenrelarkin.com/2025/07/20/c...

If some of us—Christians—refuse to play the game the kingdom of humanity has thrust upon us, then we participate in being “peacemakers” which is fundamentally a way of representing Christ and allowing faith to work itself out as love.

“…government is like dangerous navigation on a stormy sea.” LW 15:200 "Lectures on the Song of Solomon"

Can we marvel at this subheading: "Dr. Martin Luther’s Brief But Altogether Lucid Exposition of the Song of Songs"

"Many commentators have produced all manner of interpretations of this song of King Solomon’s—and they have been both immature and strange." LW 15:191 "Lectures the Song of Solomon" Luther's bluntness never gets old... Also, btdubs, the move to make the SoS about politics is a bit strange fwiw

Luther's lecture dates on the Song of Solomon give me some comfort as I preach through Romans rn: March 7, 8, 10, 15, 21, 31 1530, November 8, 14, 21, 28, 1530, December 6 1530, May 15, 16, 22, 23 1531, June 5, 6, 12, 13, 22 1531

Paul prays that the Colossian Christians become those who reject the lies and falsehoods, the strawmen and red herrings of the kingdom of humanity, those who resist the lures and dangling carrots and become the ones who call out such things for what they are... laurenrelarkin.com/2025/07/13/r...

We’ve lost our hope and joy; we’re practically strangers with curiosity. We’ve sold these down the river because either they feel extravagant right now because everything is on fire or because we’re chasing a carrot of some future hope where our joy rests on the other side of eliminating others

Some pictures of the flower garden, it’s thriving and I will need to trim some stuff back soon

Tons of yard work today!!

I cannot tell you how happy I am that I never really deleted anything from my dissertation as I was editing it...

We’re exhorted ... not to return again to a spirit of fear bc we're indwelled w/the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of the Living God, who has given us a new heart and a new spirit to live as Christ in the world to the glory of God and the wellbeing of our neighbor. laurenrelarkin.com/2025/06/22/l...

According to Paul, without the advent of Christ, we have a tendency to dethrone God with God’s Law; we find comfort in the Law because it shows us what to do and what not to do. Or so we think. But this comfort becomes our Lord, and we will choose it over discomfort every time. We need/ed liberation

Who knew I could have more words in the footnotes of the sermon than in the actual sermon itself?? Wait. I knew it...I did know it...

So, to follow this God through faith in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit is to go into the unknown, the “unsafe,” the unfamiliar; it is to be sent forward, the path backward forever sealed off. laurenrelarkin.com/2025/06/15/f...

Almost unsure about what's harder: Letting my first born go off to college? Or... OR... Trying to remove myself from the email distribution lists from the other colleges he's not attending....

We don’t worship a God who’s “safe,” “easy to figure out”, and completely “knowable and known.” We don’t worship a God who is static and still (characteristics of death); we worship a God who is dynamic and, on the move—a God who is living!

“Just as joy is a certain freedom and rest for the heart, so tribulation is restlessness and affliction. But anxiety is the affliction in which there is no way out of tribulation.” LW 25:18

Pentecost establishes the Church in both its seen and unseen expressions; the Spirit is the reason why the Church will never die even if it ceases to exist as it does today. laurenrelarkin.com/2025/06/08/t...

God dwells within us in the Spirit, who inflames our hearts and bodies to participate in God’s mission of the revolution of love, life, and liberation, the Spirit is the means by which we are healed and how forgiveness (both God’s forgiveness of us and our forgiveness of others) is worked out...

The ethicist in me took the bait--hook, line, & sinker. Printed out this article; look forward to engaging with this very interesting and necessary subject matter. Am intrigued to see where the article ethically leads the reader regarding the use of AI... derevth.blogspot.com/2025/04/ghos...

This level of unity is oneness and is more than niceness and politeness and tolerating or agreeing all the time on all things. It’s something otherworldly; it’s the very heart of our triune God. laurenrelarkin.com/2025/06/01/t...