iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 11/09/2026

A recording of a poem I wrote several years ago. www.thegospelplow.com/p/afternoon-...

Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 01/09/2026

My personal reflection from Sunday on one reason that I think so many people identified with Dolly Parton, and how her kindness exemplified Christian charity. To see the context you’ll need to read or watch the rest of the sermon, here: www.thegospelplow.com/p/poor-peter

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 10/08/2026

Capon hitting hard this morning in my Readwise review.

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 21/07/2026

I found this interesting app called Readwise that syncs multiple sources, such as kindle, apple books, medium etc. to import your highlights & notes. You can also snap pictures of physical books (essential). Then it sends a daily review of 10 random highlights for you to read & potentially memorize.

Historically, Israelites may have been for a time serfs and slaves in Babylonia, but theologically, the status accorded to them and any other human being is entirely different. It seems that from the beginning God intended us to be something more like intimate friends, even family—to use a metaphor developed by Exodus (4:22), Hosea (11:1), Isaiah (1:2), and Malachi (1:6), as well as Jesus and Paul. The blessing and sanctification of Sabbath is the first indication of what it means to think of humans as children of God. Like a parent who delights in a child, God chooses our company for no good reason at all.
Opening Israel's Scriptures

Christians killed each other, he argues, because of the kind of Christianity they had embraced
—a message of "obedience, division, and power"-whose dynamics rendered them
"unable or unwilling to restrain genocide."20 To this degree their faith was wholly complicit in murder.

—A Brutal Unity
Ephraim Radner

Forgiveness is best understood as God's willingness to give us a second chance at life on the
same terms we were given the first time. Forgiveness is the sheer grace and patience and hopefulness of God, which allows us to try again at life even when we have ignominiously failed.

—Mending the Heart
John Claypool

This means that the liturgy declaims and proclaims something rather than it analyzes or teaches something.
For this reason one should be serious, affirm forthrightly, avoid looseness and the commonplace, not annoy or polarize the assembly, and act with a gracious simplicity because humbug and
mystification are foreign both to Christianity and its worship.
—Elements of Rite
Aidan Kavanagh

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 21/06/2026

This hymn and a bit about William Cowper (pronounced Cooper) the author, will make a brief appearance in my sermon this morning at Holy Trinity. It’s probably not heard often in the Episcopal Church, but it is in Lift Every Voice and Sing II as hymn #39.

Screenshot of a hymn lyric display with a gray-blue background. At the top, the song is identified as “There Is a Fountain” by Capitol Hill Baptist Church, with album art from The Dead’s Alive. Large white text shows the lyrics: “There is a fountain filled with blood / Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins / And sinners plunged beneath that flood / Lose all their guilty stains.”

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 26/05/2026

My sermon from yesterday at Church of the Resurrection, Franklin, TN. www.thegospelplow.com/p/pentecost-...

A sermon promotional image with the title 'Pentecost and the Reversal of Babel' in large white serif text on an olive green background, with the website WWW.THEGOSPELPLOW.COM and the tagline 'The Gospel Plow: Tilling the Soil of the Kingdom' in italics. The lower half features a reproduction of a medieval woodcut print depicting a densely packed group of bearded figures in colorful robes — reds, greens, and earth tones — gathered around a central figure wearing a white head covering and a golden halo, likely representing the Virgin Mary. A building and landscape are visible in the background.

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 19/05/2026

A paper I wrote examining three sermons by Fleming Rutledge for a DMin preaching class in November 2025. www.thegospelplow.com/p/examining-...

Graphic with the title of a post, "Examining Three Sermons by Fleming Rutledge," that lists the website www.thegospelplow.com and then includes an image from Altarpiece Showing Repentance: “The left wing of the altarpiece in Jukkasjärvi church, made by Bror Hjorth, shows preacher Lars Levi Læstadius talking to the people. One repenting sinner is breaking a barrel of vodka, while another is giving back a stolen reindeer.”

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 09/05/2026

When my blog died, it meant I had to move posts over from the Internet Archive version (sadly, I lost a good bit of writing). I just posted a sermon I preached at Christ Church Cathedral on Trinity Sunday in 2019, and I thought I’d share this clip: www.thegospelplow.com/p/the-unity-...

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 23/04/2026

A good and interesting piece about AI. I especially appreciated the framing of the issue of inevitability in regard to technology. comment.org/ai-as-christ...

A highlighted excerpt from an article titled “The Way We View Technology” argues against the idea of technological inevitability, describing it as a narrative that portrays technological progress as deterministic and unavoidable, leaving humans no real choice but to adapt to systems shaped by emerging technologies.

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 14/04/2026

Well… this is an ironic article to see after that musing:

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 05/11/2025

I’m not a political scientist, but as long as people can actually vote, I feel comfortable saying this is always going to be the case when parties think a slim margin is a mandate, especially when they go extreme and, in this case, act like thugs:

Comment from an Atlantic article posted on November 24, 2024, arguing that it was incorrect to see the 2024 election results as a mandate for the GOP or Trump:

“__________, I'm not a Democrat, so I feel freed by your comment to argue the semantics (and truthfulness) of the statement. Regardless of the electoral college total, a candidate who doesn't even get to 50% of the actual vote (the AP is rounding up to get him there) can't be said to have won in a landslide or to have a mandate, and if they govern like they have one, they'll lose the house and/or senate in two years.”

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 07/09/2025

My latest: www.thegospelplow.com/p/from-nosta...

Background image is artwork of the House built on sand, with the words "From Nostalgia to Deep Change: Adaptive Leadership for the Church". Subtitled: Followup to Leading the Church in a Divergent Age.

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 07/09/2025

Occasionally I get side-tracked while writing something.. like a 500 word examination of ministry context for a DMin class that sends me on a bunny trail to try to find a way to superimpose current diocesan boundaries through a GEOJSON file on an image of a historic map of the Diocese of Tennessee.

Current diocesan boundaries superimposed over a historic map of the Diocese of Tennessee

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 17/03/2025

It’s also interesting that Trump breaks this paradigm somewhat, like so many others. He seems to have done best with households in the 30,000 - 99,000 range:

Exit polls of the presidential election in the United States in 2024, share of votes by household income

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 07/01/2025

Re-reading Jenson’s “How the World Lost its Story” for our New Testament and Christian Leadership class (DMin program), and I was struck by this:

In the postmodern world, if a congregation or churchly agency wants to be "relevant," here is the first step: It must recover the classic liturgy of the Church, in all its dramatic density, sensual actuality, and brutal realism, and make this the one exclusive center of its life. In the postmodern world, all else must at best be decoration and more likely distraction.

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 14/12/2024

Wassail to go with decorating for Christmas!

A picture of Wassail ingredients and a stove top with a pot starting to simmer.

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 03/12/2024

I discovered a former prof wrote a book on the history of death ~9 years ago, & described it with the well constructed phrase a “welcome and much-deserved emancipation.” He always wrote interesting things—I’ve been looking his work up because of his writing on migration, given current events

Book review of WM Spellman’s “A History of Death.”

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 29/11/2024

Worth sharing this article from 2016 given the first offensive in over four years by the Syrian opposition:

The conflicts unfolding in the Middle East today, then, are not really about the legitimacy of borders or the validity of places called Syria, Iraq, or Libya. Instead, the origin of the struggles within these countries is over who has the right to rule them. The Syrian conflict, regardless of what it has evolved into today, began as an uprising by all manner of Syrians — men and women, young and old, Sunni, Shiite, Kurdish, and even Alawite — against an unfair and corrupt autocrat, just as Libyans, Egyptians, Tunisians, Yemenis, and Bahrainis did in 2010 and 2011.

The weaknesses and contradictions of authoritarian regimes are at the heart of the Middle East’s ongoing tribulations. Even the rampant ethnic and religious sectarianism is a result of this authoritarianism, which has come to define the Middle East’s state system far more than the Sykes-Picot agreement ever did.

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 29/11/2024

Yes, this is my recipe, except I replaced the cheese with peas because my wife has alpha-gal and can’t have things like cheese anymore.

16 oz. package of macaroni, cooked and drained
½ cup chopped bread & butter pickles
1 cup chopped red onion
1 cup chopped red bell pepper
1 cup chopped green bell pepper
2 Tbsp. sugar*
2.5 cups Duke's Mayonnaise
2 8 oz. block extra sharp cheddar cheese, cubed
½ tsp paprika
salt and pepper to taste
*optional
For a fun variation, add a few fresh chopped jalapeños.
Combine pickle, onion, pepper, (sugar) and mayonnaise in a bowl.
Pour over the cooled macaroni and mix well. Sprinkle paprika on top.
Chill 4 hours before serving.
I adapted this recipe from the one my mama used to make for family gatherings. I tend to use more bell peppers than she does, and I like

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 27/11/2024

The day before Thanksgiving and while they’re looking a little ragged after a bit of cold the last two days, our azalea still has blooms (and a few new buds). Seems pretty strange.

Picture of our azalea from last Thursday.

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 27/11/2024

Stopped to get some brandy for some pumpkin pies @aehowardwrites.bsky.social is planning to make and I noticed that my favorite scotch is now more than $30 more expensive than it was when I first discovered it.

Display of scotch focused on Bunnahabain 12 year old which has increased in price from approximately $65 when I first purchased it, to $95+

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 26/11/2024

It is will lose the house and/or senate in two years:

Screen cap of the popular vote tally and shaded map by state of %point win per candidate in the2024 Presidential election.

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 26/11/2024

Cool. www.semafor.com/article/11/2...

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 20/11/2024

I missed a like! Here's another.

The Theology of John Donne (Studies in Renaissance Literature, 1) (Volume 1) by Jeffrey Johnson.

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 20/11/2024

From December’s Harper’s, an excerpt from Homeland by Richard Beck:

From December’s Harper’s (p.17) an excerpt from Homeland by Richard Beck.

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 17/11/2024

Filling in at one of our parishes this morning and enjoyed doing Rite I at 8. I get to do a baptism at 10:30. Also, they added some art to the church and this one is right up my alley (taken from an angle to cut down on glare).

Framed picture of a print of Jesus cleansing the Temple.

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 13/11/2024

"I propose that the preacher's first and most important responsibility is to educate the imaginations of her hearers so that they have the linguistic skills to enter the world that Scripture discloses..." -Ellen Davis

Quote from Ellen Davis, Preaching the Luminous Word, 93-94

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 13/11/2024

This is a great article. And while it's true that Democrats could benefit from this, going hyper-local and hyper-personal will be good on many fronts. Rebuilding intermediary organizations is one of the things that can keep the boot of a wanna-be authoritarian state from crushing people.

Screencap of an article at The Nation: "The US Is a Civic Desert."

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 13/11/2024

This was a classic. "New Confusion." We have a lot of that politically right now.

Screen cap from the former site with a classic observation about "new confusion" as a COVID symptom.

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 13/11/2024

Deleting my tweets before nuking my account, so I thought I'd share a few here. This is from May...

A screen cap of the first page of "Our Public Conversation: How America Talks about Itself" in *What are we Doing Here* by Marilynne Robinson

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 11/11/2024

I've been thinking recently about this point in "Render To Caesar" by my New Testament Professor the Rev. Dr. Christopher Bryan. I think part of preaching faithfully during this time is positively calling people to care for those who need care & protection, & also warning those in power who refuse.

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 05/11/2024

Regardless of the result of today’s election, we have some hard work ahead of us in restoring a shared sense of reality upon which so many other things depend.

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 03/11/2024

Psalm 24 came in hard this morning.

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 24/10/2024

Can someone explain this to me? Is this just evidence of the fact that people don't know what the heck they're talking about, and terms get caught up in partisan slapfights? Because dreamers are undocumented immigrants, just undocumented immigrants who arrived as children (1/2)

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 28/09/2024

After seeing this, I went to the internet archive and searched for her book. I found volume two, and I love the way the recipes are written. Direct and to the point, no long-winded narrative, or showing you pictures and needing to scroll 15 pages before you get to ingredients.

A recipe for sweet 'n sour meatballs from Betty Feezor's Carolina Recipes. Vol. II

SWEET 'N SOUR MEATBALLS

1 pound whole cranberry sauce
8 ounce can tomato sauce
Orange marmalade and brown
sugar to taste

MEATBALLS:
1 pound ground chuck
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons dry onion soup mix
1/8 teaspoon pepper
3/4 cup water
1/8 teaspoon oregano

Cook sauce ingredients in heavy pot till blended and heated.
Combine remaining ingredients; shape into small meatballs, then
add to sauce. Cover; simmer over low heat for 45 minutes, stirring
occasionally, till done. Serve over rice or noodles to 4

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 19/09/2024

It’s petty, but every time I see a reference to this movie my left eye twitches & I think “wolves.” Unless the film is them eating enormous amounts of food, I don’t think I can watch it because of the title. If it is about that, then I wouldn’t watch it because of the content.

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 17/09/2024

Thanks for the invitation. This is my favorite alternative to the Zombie bird. I think it actually shows more promise and is better in a number of ways than the original.

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 15/08/2024

China Is in Denial About the War in Ukraine buff.ly/3X1PlZs

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 13/08/2024

A brief, but good, discussion of the need for electoral reforms to enliven our body politic: The Democratic Party Is (Still) Broken buff.ly/3yN801H

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Jody Howard @thegospelplow.com · 07/08/2024

From Jodi Kantor. A good example of the sort of work that teachers have to engage in to really prepare students for life, and to be good people, and good citizens: buff.ly/3WDMJ2l

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