Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts.  (Søren Kierkegaard)     Read more

    Some people have quirky touristic interests.  I certainly do.   I love, for example, to visit college and university campuses.   And iconic, culturally significant bookstores.   Thus, for example, I’ve made my pilgrimages — multiple times in each case — to Blackwell’s in Oxford, to Powell’s in Portland, to Schoenhof’s near Harvard, to New York City’s Strand bookstore, and to at least the reincarnation of Shakespeare and Company in Paris.   Accordingly, although our recent weekend trip to San... Read more

    Matthew 21:33-46 Mark 12:1-12 Luke 20:9-19   Cornerstones serve no vital structural function in modern building.  Indeed, they’re often added very late in the construction process, during purely ceremonial events.  In premodern times, though, the cornerstone was used to align the other foundations and walls, etc., of a new structure.  It was placed at the very beginning of construction and served as a point of reference for the workers, from which they took their bearings.  Thus, cornerstones had... Read more

    There are many points in this 9:30-minute video interview where I would want to comment — e.g., I think it very debatable that gender-related wage gaps in Utah or elsewhere in the United States have much directly to do with “patriarchy,” let alone with Mormonism — but I do think that Ms. Kelly’s remarks (e.g., calling for “queer people” to be welcomed into full Church participation apparently regardless of their sexual behavior, and labeling the Church a “cult”) eloquently... Read more

    The eminent American astronomer Allan Sandage (1926–2010) worked for many years at the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California, and lived in the nearby town of San Gabriel, only a few blocks from the house in which I grew up.  One of my great disappointments is that I learned this only very shortly before he died, and that, consequently, I was never able to meet him.  Dr. Sandage determined the first reasonably accurate values for the Hubble constant and for the age of the universe.... Read more

    A hadith qudsi attributed to the Prophet Muhammad on the authority of Anas b. Malik (and collected in the Sahih of al-Bukhari) represents God as saying the following:   When a servant of mine advances a foot toward me, I advance a yard toward him.  And when he advances a yard toward me, I advance toward him the length of his arms spread out.  When he comes walking toward me, I go to him running.   Posted from... Read more

    “It often happens that I wake up at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide I must tell the Pope about it.  Then I wake up completely and remember that I am the Pope.” Pope Saint John XXIII   Posted from San Francisco, California   Read more

    Matthew 21:28-32 Compare Luke 7:29-30 A simple observation:  Someone setting out to demonstrate the Protestant teaching of salvation by grace alone, without works — sola fide, sola gratia — would, I think, have a very difficult time doing so solely from the teachings of Jesus Christ as recorded in the four New Testament gospels.   You can’t find it in this passage.  You can’t really find it anywhere else in the gospels, either.  For that matter, I don’t believe... Read more

    A nice piece from Neal Rappleye:   http://www.studioetquoquefide.com/2015/10/some-thoughts-on-bracketing-and.html   Posted from San Francisco, California     Read more

    You may or may not have heard of these items, but this is a very handy and interesting annotated list:   http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/december-web-only/biblical-archaeologys-top-ten-discoveries-of-2014.html   Posted from San Francisco, California     Read more