Pascal by day, but Melville by night. No wonder I can’t get a New Year’s letter out the door. Last night I finished Moby-Dick, an enterprise I started, once, long ago, and found too mind-numbing even for me. My daughter, an English Lit major, warned me. “Read only if assigned. Then you can write a paper on it and get credit.” Unfortunately, it’s part of a Franklin books collection my parents gave me as a graduation gift from high school,... Read more
Okay, this week we’re diving into French history, which might not be your cup of tea. But I’ll try to make you feel it was worth your while. If we back up a bit to the 16th century, we find France undergoing seismic shifts in economy, religion, and culture—all of these, of course, playing on each other. The Renaissance moved art, literature, and music into fertile new areas (think Michelangelo, who died about sixty years before Pascal was born… in... Read more
As we pointed out last week, Pascal’s actual scientific and mathematical work has been far surpassed. We may like stories about Euclid and Galileo, Newton and Leibniz but we don’t usually come across them in the Google rankings of “most quotable.” In fact, for a scientist/logician/mathematician, Pascal has a remarkably unscientific reputation among many contemporary French people. Those whose knowledge of Pascal’s ideas may be marginal but who have some sense that his contemporary, Descartes, was a hard core rationalist... Read more
Pascal, this unusual 17th-century giant, seems to be poised to speak again from a distance to a 21st-century generation feeling pulled in multiple directions. While Pascal’s life was unusual for his age, he seems oddly a man of our time in many ways. Most common people of the 17th century had very limited exposure to cutting edge science, philosophy, or mathematics. [There was, however, lots of “cutting edge” religion to go around, though the cutting edge part was not metaphorical... Read more
Yesterday I wound up the last obligations of my fall courses. This included grading a handful of papers I couldn’t finish before the holidays. Many of these papers were from the Spiritual Formation class I teach—galloping through scripture and speed-dating with historical figures who have so brilliantly pointed the way for us. There they are, ahead on the road, at the turn in the distance, seeing something we cannot yet see but exclaiming to us wonders nearly inexpressible. Many of... Read more
The darkness of December weighs heavily. Despite the glories of living in Colorado, with its bright blue skies and the heady weight of light during the days, still, December is dark early and late. Dark when we leave in the morning; dark as we drive home from work. The day barely peaks before the long shadows drive the sun to its early rest. So, we wait. The sun and earth will soon renegotiate their relationship, and the reign of night... Read more
I read the Psalms, and I imagine you do too. Many read the Psalms when they wouldn’t touch Leviticus with a ten-foot pole. The Psalms are on the “beloved” list, along with things like the parable of the Good Samaritan and Paul’s ode to love; Ezra, perhaps, along with Obadiah and some other books, on the “really? that’s in the Bible?” list. But even then, some Psalms are more beloved than others. Psalm 23 takes the prize, I imagine. Followed... Read more
As pastor’s kids, we enjoyed a certain amount of both notoriety and adulation, depending on who the observer was. As a little one, I remember weaving in and out of adult legs and conversations with a sensation of ownership, as though the church lobby was my fair demesne and these were all stewards of some sort. There were times I hugged the wrong legs, thinking they belonged to my dad… but did not. At that young age, I could do... Read more
My Catholic friends reassure me that I know nothing about guilt. They are experts. The very ritual of confession generates guilt, they say. They remember feeling guilty that they didn’t feel guilty, and making up sins to confess. The darkened confessional, the sliding door, the whispered prayers, the priest’s questions – all operated as a virtual guilt production line. Even worse was when they didn’t go to confession or attend Mass. And then saw the priest at school. More guilt,... Read more
Today I read a review of Rachel Held Evans’ A Year of Biblical Womanhood, her account of spending a year trying to “take all of the Bible’s instructions for women as literally as possible.” This has her end up calling her husband “master,” keeping her mouth shut in church, and staying in a pup tent during her period. I have not read the book. All this I learn from the back cover. I did read the review, though Pastor Guyton,... Read more
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