Craving
There is evidence to suggest that we are living in a world that is craving more, fearing much, and feeling greater and greater helplessness. The news blogs and publications; the political polls and debates; and our entertainment and social commentaries would indicate anxious tendencies. Blaise Pascal was a mathematician, physicist, and philosopher of the 17th…
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Tomorrow, You’re Always a Day Away
How do we go about living in the present? It seems that we are always either living in the past or looking at the future. How do I stay focused on this moment right here as my fingers dance over the keyboard of my laptop computer? Wendell Berry speaking of universities said, “It was preparing…
Continue readingThe Harvard Grant Study
In the fall of 2008, journalist and author, Joshua Wolf Shenk was given the rare privilege to spend a month reading the results of a 70 year longitudinal study of mental and physical well-being known as the “Grant Study.” Prior to this, the files had been kept locked up to all but a few researchers.…
Continue readingLife is This Simple
“Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or a fable, it is true.”– Thomas Merton, Spiritual Master: The Essential Writings; Orbis Books, 2001.
Continue readingLaws of the Flesh and the Physical
In 1955, Flannery O’Conner1 said, “Right now the whole world seems to be going through a dark night of the soul.”2 I wonder what she would say about the whole world today. 2014 is a time in which we are “post-everything.” Many have given up on the Catholic Church, given up on Evangelicalism, given up…
Continue readingMaking the Best of It
I have a friend who works in criminal law in downtown Vancouver. Daily, he faces the “real world” of robbery, domestic abuse, drunk driving, murder, and many other indications of the brokenness of this world. My own experience with the real world comes from previous work in the ethics of a molecular genetics lab, years…
Continue readingSteve Jobs
Walter Isaacson is a writer of biographies whose previous works include the life story of Henry Kissinger, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein. I find biographies to be interesting insights into public personalities and have read Isaacson’s Einstein: His Life and Universe. Recently, Isaacson completed what will likely be his biggest selling book, the authorised biography…
Continue readingExotheology
Although I have thought about the subject for years, I learned a new term today: “exotheology.” It is defined as the examination of theological issues related to extraterrestrial intelligence. Now lest you think I have completely lost my mind, let me point out that many gifted and creative writers have written on this topic. C.S.…
Continue readingUnlived Things
No one lives his life.Disguised since childhood,haphazardly assembledfrom voices and fears and little pleasures,we come of age as masks.Our true face never speaksSomewhere there must be storehousesWhere all these lives are laid awaylike suits of armor or old carriagesor clothes hanging limply on the walls.All paths lead there,to the repository of unlived things. –Rainer Maria…
Continue readingRole Models
Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity. 1 Timothy 4:12 (New International Version) One of my favourite parts of the Bible has always been 1 Timothy chapter four. When I was a young…
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