Inshallah It’s been a year since we visited Morocco over Christmas–certainly one of the most memorable Christmases ever. If you want to get back to the roots of why we celebrate Christmas, I’d highly recommend spending it in a place that is 99% Muslim. I saw exactly two Christmas trees (and one was made of blue and silver tinsel) and zero Christian churches in ten days. There was absolutely no effort to commercialize, hype or trivialize the event. It felt like we were…
My favorite photo from Thailand: a RBNS macaque in Lop Buri. If spiritual but not religious (SBNR) is the movement that lulls the secular masses into a false sense of spiritual security, then religious but not spiritual (RBNS) is the equivalent amongst regular church goers. Whether it is the temple-going-returned-missionary whose apostasy you never saw coming, or your Christian friend whose lifestyle betrays no evidence of their born-again-and-go-to-church-every-Sunday faith, it is far too common for comfort. These are ever-present reminders…
Fr. James Martin is a Jesuit that takes issue with SBNR at Busted Halo I’ve never met Reverend Lillian Daniel, but hearing her call out the spiritual but not religious (SBNR) crowd on this podcast made me an instant fan (listen to her 3 minute audio clip here, transcript here). Being privately spiritual but not religious just doesn’t interest me. There is nothing challenging about having deep thoughts all by oneself. What is interesting is doing this work in community,…
Portrait of Niccolò Machiavelli by Santi di Tito Niccolò Machiavelli (1489-1527) was an influential politician and writer from Florence at the peak of the Italian Renaissance. His work The Prince is so notoriously self-serving and unscrupulous, that it spawned the whole concept of Machiavellian ethics. Not surprisingly, he didn’t exactly have the reputation of a pious saint. I recently read an account of “Machiavelli’s dream” which reminded me of a similar passage written by Moroni. Failing in health, Niccolò’s doctors could do nothing more for him…
nurturing the seeds we planted Thanksgiving is a time of harvest and thankfulness. It’s definitely my favorite holiday. I’ve been thinking about the harvest Paul’s use of the the harvest as a teaching moment. In summarizing the Law of the Harvest, Paul said: Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Galatians 6:7 a canola field You reap what you sow. This is not rocket science. You cannot plant peas in the…
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008)Taken while a prisoner in a Kazakhstan Gulag Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970 (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and The Gulag Archipelago). A former Red Army captain, he was sentenced to eight years in a labor camp in 1945 for making derogatory comments about Joseph Stalin in a private letter to a friend. After being interrogated and tortured at Lubyanka prison in Moscow, he was sent to a Gulag in Kazakhstan to work…
A Poison Treeby Merm-ish A Poison Tree I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow. And I watered it in fears, Night and morning with my tears; And I sunned it with smiles, And with soft deceitful wiles. And it grew both day and night, Till it bore an apple bright. And my foe beheld it shine. And he knew…
The Deuteronomy ScrollA copy of the Ten Commandments as recorded in Deuteronomy 5The Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit – Philadelphia, PA – 2012Photo: Israel Antiquities Authority When I visited the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit in Philadelphia I was very moved by the display of The Deuteronomy Scroll, which recites the Ten Commandments. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold guiltless the one who takes his name in vain. The Deuteronomy Scroll*…
George W. Bush at a 2005 Press Conference UNWEARYINGNESS: I came upon this word while reading the Book of Mormon recently and it kind of jumped out at me. The word could arguably be considered a heavenly equivalent of a Bushism. However, one has to be a little careful in being too critical of God’s linguistic style. Actually, I looked it up and it is a legitimate word. But it’s certainly not one you encounter in the scriptures every day. In God’s estimation,…
Scene from the 1993 classic: The Sandlot Anyone from my era has recollections of the anxiety provoked by the Physical Education teacher telling us to “line up and pick teams”. I’m not sure if they still do this given how traumatic it can be for the kid picked last. I vividly recall the anticipated horror of being unchosen, and forced upon the team with the last pick. Kids generally were not that nice about those kinds of things. It was a…