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Becoming Neo-Pascalian: Setting Our Hearts

June 17, 2013 By Leave a Comment

I’ve been reading my way through the Old Testament again and have reached the sad, sad beginning of the Great Brokenness. The tales of David—hero and king, poet and warrior, man of passion and lover of God—are really the sort of stories that blockbusters are made out of. Long chapters of his life, rich both in detail and in innuendo, create a moving panorama of light and shadows, grand events and bitter moments. And then there’s Solomon—all big and glorious, wise and rich and … [Read More...]

papa

Remembering Papa, Barely

June 13, 2013 By 1 Comment

As a nine-year-old, living in a different state from my Papa, I was fairly unmindful of him; he was more mythic than substantial. Even my memories of him are blurred around the edges, only coming into focus when I look at photographs of him. Tall, lanky, small wire-framed glasses, an ever-present pipe with that sweet smoky smell. A fisherman, a hunter. A tiny house in Springfield, Illinois, a cluttered living room, a round rack for an absolutely fascinating collection of pipes; rare and rather … [Read More...]

Becoming Neo-Pascalian: Diminishing Your Passions or Increasing Your Hunger

June 10, 2013 By Leave a Comment

In our last Neo-Pascalian conversation, I indicated that fragment 418 held yet another clue to the business of make-believe faith. There he addresses the one who “seeks a cure”—who recognizes his or her unbelief and wants to remedy the situation. That, I suggested, indicates the all-important … [Read More...]

A Trilogy of Celebrations: 1 + 1 + 1

May 23, 2013 By 1 Comment

As a child, I only got two religious holidays—Christmas and Easter—and even then, they were minimally observed. That is, the language and meaning of the historical event was there, but the communal ceremony and physical expression and creative experience was missing. Sometimes Evangelicalism … [Read More...]

If I Hadn’t Had Children…

May 8, 2013 By 4 Comments

Mother’s Day is usually a day on which other people in my life think nice things about me (I hope), or I think of my own mother (always), and yet, perhaps this year it’s time to reflect on just exactly what on earth has happened to me. There are those mothers who anticipated the delights of a … [Read More...]

My House: God’s Favorite Place on Earth

May 1, 2013 By Leave a Comment

(A Book Review) “Living after you have died is strange.” So Lazarus tells us. An understatement, don’t you think? Living before you have died is sometimes very strange, so after you’ve died has to be far weirder. Not many people get to tell that story. In God’s Favorite Place on … [Read More...]

Becoming Neo-Pascalian: The Second Step Toward a Make-Believe Faith

April 24, 2013 By 4 Comments

I want to begin this part of the conversation acknowledging a comment to my last post about a sense of need. Nick astutely writes: My big problem with “God shaped hole” arguments is that it seems to me that I would have to accuse an awful lot of people of living in, at the very least, … [Read More...]

Becoming Neo-Pascalian: The First Step of Make-Believe Faith

April 16, 2013 By 1 Comment

We are left with this all-important question: how do we get faith? How do we “make belief”? If we’re not lucky or blessed enough to have a Damascus-road experience, and, as Pascal tells us, we can’t reason our way to faith or merely don faith like a good habit, then what? What? If indeed … [Read More...]

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Making Room for the In-Laws

April 9, 2013 By 5 Comments

Marriage is the ultimate melting pot. Unless you’re one of those whose families knew each other well prior to their children marrying, if you’re married, you have probably had an experience something like mine. He was an Episcopalian; I was an Evangelical Free Churcher. He was from … [Read More...]

Easter: Tripping Over Joy

April 2, 2013 By 4 Comments

The Easter season has only just begun. It will go on for another seven weeks, and then it will go on for eternity. This poem, for me at least, captures both its magnificence and its munificence, its great grace and its hilarity. There is a laughter that comes when we are deeply relieved at having … [Read More...]

Becoming Neo-Pascalian: From Gambling Table to Altar

March 27, 2013 By Leave a Comment

One of the concepts Pascal is best known for is his Wager, a longer fragment in Pensées (f. 418). Here Pascal brings his formidable mathematical mind, operating halfway between the gambling table and the altar, to the issue of faith, and plays with probability theory in the soul. It is such a rich … [Read More...]

Loving Mrs. Turpin, Loving the Grotesque

March 19, 2013 By 2 Comments

If I were less ordinary, reading Flannery O’Connor would be more fun. As it is, I inhabit the commonplace, and she lives in a different dimension, a place, as one critic put it, of living gargoyles. This makes reading her fiction a stressful and shocking experience. I imagine that, if she knew … [Read More...]

Becoming Neo-Pascalian: The Third Order

March 12, 2013 By 1 Comment

In our last Pascalian conversation, I left you with fire. And if you’ve had an experience like Pascal’s, perhaps you feel that all this blather about science and reason and blah, blah, blah is highly irritating. Fire is warm and bright and compelling. Science and reason is cold and comfortless. … [Read More...]

My Mother’s Morals

March 3, 2013 By 9 Comments

I’ve been thinking a lot about my mom these days anyway, since it has been nearly thirty-three years to the day since I last saw her. And then I read this article: “Not Your Mother’s Morals”: A Review. And let me say up front, this post is no reflection on Jonathan Fitzgerald, his … [Read More...]