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Small Things

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The scene is one that I have talked about often in recent years in the history courses that I teach. I use it because it is a wonderful example of how our understanding of the meaning of historical or current events can be different from God’s perspective. Jesus is in the temple, watching events unfold. One by one, wealthy individuals parade through the temple, donating the sums that will keep the temple’s treasury full. If records were kept of donations, these would be the ones that people would tend to notice. But in the middle of it all, Jesus points his disciples somewhere else – a woman, a widow with two copper coins, dropping them without fanfare into the money box. Without Jesus’s input, no one would have noticed the real story of this day. That story, Jesus tells His disciples, is not the big names, not the “important” people, it is the story of this woman, putting in everything that she has (Mark 12:21-44; Luke 21:1-4). The shocking truth this reveals is that the things that m...
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Certainty and Pascal

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  Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) has been a faithful companion from the “cloud of witnesses” for 26 years of my life. In many difficult and quiet moments I have thought of him. He was the voice from the past that ushered me out of a difficult chapter of my life and gave me a vision for what a living faith could be. On this day after Pascal’s birthday, I wanted to share a couple of things that Pascal taught me about “certainty” and how it has made a difference in my life. On November 23, 1654, when he was 31 years old, Pascal experienced what has come to be known as his “Night of Fire.” I quote the beginning here, but the whole thing Is worth reading (I’ll include a link in the comments): “God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob! not of philosophers and scholars. Certainty, certainty, heartfelt joy, peace.” At the time of my life when I started reading Pascal in earnest, I had already had my “Night of Fire” – a moment when I experienced God’s overwhelming peace. It was a moment of tra...
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Why We Write

I have promoted the work of the CPX ( Centre for Public Christianity ) before, especially their podcast. This week, in an interview that had much that was compelling on other subjects, Oliver Burkeman made what i think is an incredibly important point about Artificial Intelligence (link to podcast episode in comments). I work in a field (higher education) that has experienced a great deal of upheaval about developments in AI. Oftentimes the response feels desperate or even panicky about the potential of machines writing like human beings. I have heard too many weak statements that claim that computers will never write like human beings and that AI is some kind of scourge. Burkeman, in a significant recasting, says that, in the end, it is not really a question of whether AI could generate a novel like those of Austen, Dostoevsky, Dickens (insert other great authors here) or could generate poetry. Rather, he says: "The important thing about a novel written by a human is, not that it...
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Many Callings

There are a lot of inspiring stories available to us of people who have given their lives to a cause or to a work or to a calling. We celebrate their sacrifices and we admire their accomplishments. These stories can give us courage to get up and do something. They can show us how to live purposefully. But sometimes, they can also make us feel like a failure. It has always been easy to enter the comparison game, but the world of social media has certainly held up a standard of excellence that too few of us feel like we are able to reach. Everyone’s story is different, and I do not claim to know how those who have had great successes and achievements live their lives. What I do know is that a dedication to a single great end is not the calling of all lives. I, for one, have sensed that God’s calling on my life is not a single calling, but a multitude of callings. I am called to be engaged and purposeful, as a follower of Christ, in being a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a contribut...
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Truth Matters

We live in a world of rhetoric, where people tend to look for words that will win an argument even if the words play a bit loose with truth. We see this every day and it is done in often seemingly harmless but sometimes rather harmful ways. This approach makes sense in a world that values winning above all other values. To be “successful” and to “win” are, for many at least, the ultimate goals. Those who call themselves Christians – Christ-followers – cannot accept this way of operating. We are called to the highest of virtues. In particular today I am concerned with the ways that I see those who are Christ-followers handling truth in careless ways. Lately where this has struck me the most is in all of the discussions about the newly revised USDS (now United States DOGE Services). One of the ways that people have played the rhetoric game is by comparing what DOGE is doing to a bank audit. The move here is clear. Everyone would agree that it is good to check the bank books to make sure ...
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In the Bleak Midwinter

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Today at 4:21 AM, earth’s north pole was tilted furthest away from the sun during its annual trek through space. For thousands of years people have been marking the winter solstice, noting (in the northern hemisphere) when the place of the sunrise and sunset reached its point furthest south before moving back toward the north and its place at the spring equinox. It was a time when people looked at the sky and (ironically in our scientific age) knew the motions of the heavens much better than we do. Unlike those living centuries ago, we keep our time in our pocket or on our wrists. The solstice was significant because it was a visible marker of being in the depths of winter but also a reminder that, even when all is darkest and coldest, spring is on the way. I live in Florida now, so this connection to the seasons is less pressing than it was when I lived in central Kansas or western Michigan. For people who did not have central heat or electricity, warmth and light were at a premium at...
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I Wonder as I Wander

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  Photo Credit: ESA/Hubble “I wonder as I wander out under the sky how Jesus the Savior did come for to die for poor or’nry people like you and like i I wonder as I wander out under the sky.” It’s not a song that I hear a lot during Christmastime, but some years ago I had a meaningful musical experience singing it, and this year it has come back to me. The origins of the song are in a small bit of music that a composer (John Jacob Niles) heard in the late 1800s in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. Its lyrics resonate with the earthiness and poverty that characterized that region of the country. Imagining Jesus as being born in the North Carolina backcountry, in a barn filled with animals, does not seem too far-fetched. He did not come as a pristine baby, brow shining with angelic light, to adorn the crafted mantels and beautiful trees of the upper-middle class. Instead, the song flattens the dirty straw at the foot of the manger to remind us that those who believe all ha...
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