Posts by Tyler Dirks

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Systems & Movements

by Tyler Dirks

There are amusement systems and adventure systems. White water rafting is an adventure system. Roller coasters are amusement systems. White water rafting calls for participation. Roller coasters call for passivity. White water rafting invites participants into risk, peril, failure, and joy. Roller coasters invite paying customers and season pass consumers to stand in line for […]

Squandering Popularity

by Tyler Dirks

What if people foisted elite social status upon you? What if YouTube offered you fame and fortune amongst Mr. Beast, Ryan Trahan, Dude Perfect, and Yuya? What if society said, “You have to really really really care about Prom! And you are obligated to go to Prom (even if you’d rather go camping, or play […]

What Commends Us To God’s Grace?

by Tyler Dirks

The following quotations are from Robert Farrar Capon… “Judgment falls not on the unacceptable but on those who will not accept acceptance.” “The whole purpose of the coming of the Word into the world is to produce people in whom the power of the kingdom will bear fruit. But since the kingdom is fully, albeit […]

RFC Quotes…

by Tyler Dirks

More quotations from Robert Farrar Capon… “Any authentically Christian system is going to have to keep off the kick of human merit and demerit and stick resolutely to a ubiquity of grace that overrides the subject of human works.” “Salvation is not a matter of getting a reward that will make up for a rotten […]

Caring & Contemplating

by Tyler Dirks

The follow quotations are from Robert Farrar Capon… “We need good liturgies, and we need natural ones; we need a life neither patternless nor over patterned, if the city is to be built. And I think the root of it all is caring. Not that that will turn the trick all by itself, but that […]

Best Book I’ve Listened to in 2025

by Tyler Dirks

“Everything Sad Is Untrue” by Daniel Nayeri Read it! Or listen to it! Read/listen to it because… It talks about sojourners/refugees, and it will put pressure on you to make decisions that are aligned with the emphasis and Spirit of Leviticus 19:9-10! It talks about bullying in school. It talks about bidets. It talks about […]

A Quote from Farrar Capon’s Culinary Reflection

by Tyler Dirks

“Let us pause and drink to that. To a radically, perpetually unnecessary world; to the restoration of astonishment to the heart and mystery to the mind; to wine, because it is a gift we never expected; to mushroom and artichoke, for they are incredible legacies; to improbable acids and high alcohols, since we would hardly […]

Capon Quote

by Tyler Dirks

“In Jesus, God has put up a “Gone Fishing” sign on the religion shop. He has done the whole job in Jesus once and for all and simply invited us to believe it – to trust the bizarre, unprovable proposition that in him, every last person on earth is already home free without a single […]

Bonhoeffer & Capon

by Tyler Dirks

“The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the Cross of Jesus. The greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot grasp this one thing: what sin is. Worldly wisdom knows what distress and weakness and failure are, but it does […]

Butterfield Quotes

by Tyler Dirks

“I think that churches would be places of greater intimacy and growth in Christ if people stopped lying about what we need, what we fear, where we fail, and how we sin.” ― Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor’s Journey Into Christian Faith “There is only one thing […]