Yesterday I shared a few of the things that I am thankful for. Today, I want to share one more thing, something I never want to take for granted. That “one more thing” is you! I’m thankful for you. I’m thankful for each of you who read this blog. It’s true that I would still […]
Life & Culture
A Few of My Favorite Things
I was recently mulling over some lists I’ve made in the past, lists of things I was thankful for. One list I came across was written several years ago. I was surprised that, with only some slight modifications, many of the things I had been thankful for then were still relevant today. Some were […]
An Evening Praise (From the Valley of Vision)
Today, I offer you ‘Evening Praise” from The Valley of Vision. It’s a beautiful and stirring Puritan prayer. As I often do with my students, I encourage you to read it contemplatively. First, read it through silently at your regular reading speed. Take it in, as C.S. Lewis says in “A Preface to Paradise Lost” the […]
Thank God for our Heritage
As you know, Americans will celebrate Thanksgiving this week. For some it will be a time of great celebration as they gather with family and friends, and feast on Turkey and other traditional fixings. For others, holidays like this are a time of great consternation and discouragement. For others still, it’s a day like every […]
Why History is Not Bunk!
Henry Ford is best known for his Model T and Fordism. But it was the infamous quip, “History is bunk,” attributed to the petulant industrialist by a Chicago Tribune reporter, that Aldous Huxley would use to immortalize Ford as a modernist philosopher. In his dystopian novel, Brave New World, Huxley successfully indulges our imagination by […]
A Dirty Word
Humanism is a dirty word to a lot of Christians. As an ethical posture, humanism claims to promote social justice on behalf of the dignity of the human being. As a philosophy it emphasizes reason and naturalism, and vehemently opposes the metaphysical, specifically faith and religion. Very often the adjective secular is added to clarify […]
A Theology of Contemplation
At the root of Christian Humanism–the study of the Great Books, Human Letters, or the Liberal Arts, toward the pursuit of the true, good, and beautiful–is a theology of contemplation. Though this leisurely art is an important feature of being human, it is all but lost in 21st-century America. It’s no less true of the church. […]
The Priceless Discipline of Sharing
I recently encountered a statement in which the author wrote, “The discipline of sharing something daily is priceless.” By sharing he meant practicing his craft by getting it out to his audience. He was not saying the thing he was sharing was priceless (though, obviously it was important) but the discipline, the hard work and […]
What is Truth?
This is the famous statement Pilate asked Jesus just before he crucified him. Spiritual revelation aside, this is also the question humans have been asking for nearly all of our existence on the earth. But does truth matter? Does it really concern any of us if someone else has a different perspective on what is […]
What is the Happy Life?
In Steven Conrad’s 2006 drama, The Pursuit of Happyness, Chris Gardner (the protagonist played by Will Smith) lays the thesis of the film at the feet of the viewers when he says, “It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence and the part about our right to life, […]