When Jesus was arrested, not many people covered themselves in glory, but one person in particular wasn’t covered at all. The historical records note: And a young man followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about his body; and they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked. This odd bit of history is only recorded by John Mark and so most scholars think the streaker was almost surely John Mark. When my dad named... Read more
I love Sherlock Holmes stories. On any given night, I go to sleep hearing Charlton Griffen read the stories to me. Somewhere in my heart, it is always 1895 and the game is always afoot. Thank you, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Oddly, this bright medical doctor went off into an odd mental corner. He became fascinated with Spiritualism and became an exceedingly effective debater for the cause. Doyle did an odd thing for a very decent reason. He was a... Read more
When I was a boy, so long ago that you could play outside all day without adult supervision, there was an odd custom. At Clendenin Elementary School, we would hand out cards to everyone in the class. These cards were sometimes homemade, but most often purchased in boxes from Kroger’s. There were Peanuts gang cards, but I preferred the more serious cards that had a lingering Victorian flavor. There was always one teacher card and that was easy to give... Read more
The greatest danger is not that we will lose, but that we will win having become what we fight in winning. What will it profit us if we win the whole world and lose our souls? Yet I am told, very often told, that this is merely weakness and defeatism. “We must fight as we must fight, sometimes nasty and when we have won and are done, we will drop those tools and live like gentlemen.” This is more or less... Read more
There is hope if we feel lost. Oddly, the first thing that happens when I say this is for someone to shoot out a message saying they do not feel lost. My response is to be very happy for them. If you are happy with how things are, then my job is not to make you sad. Maybe somebody is called to wake people up to their actual misery, but I think only very great people should do this very often.... Read more
Around 1986, I discovered that my Commodore 64 could link to other computers in a service named Q-Link. The speed of conversation was so slow I could see the letters of each word forming as the other person wrote his question. I would try to guess the question and start sending the answer at the same time. This sometimes failed. Once I argued for the existence of God when the person was asking me about the problem of evil .... Read more
Memo to Administration of Jesus University From: Al C. Biades Ed.D., Consultant for WIN.EDU! T0 Leadership: We are worried about the future viability of your educational project. First, you are heavily invested in disciples and apostles with hardly any support services. One has to question the viability of such a model. You have too many teachers and not nearly enough people to support those teachers by telling those teachers what to do and teach. Second, the organization frequently doubles down... Read more
The road to hell is a broad, paved, smooth gradual slope. By the time a man must abandon hope of redemption, his little graft, his passive aggressive anger, or his little bigotries have become monstrous. Does it really matter if I tell that racist joke? Is it so important that I gossip a bit or imply something that is not quite right about my competitor? Decent people go wrong, but often in small steps over little disappointments. A businessperson might... Read more
The speeder driving, womp rat killing Luke Skywalker had not done anything to be ready to learn. He was undisciplined and unfocussed. He wasn’t brave enough to defy his Uncle and go to the Academy or loving enough to be patient knowing he would get there eventually. Why would he be ready for the chance of a lifetime from an old man stuck in the desert? Even if old Ben Kenobi was his ticket off that planet, a lifetime of... Read more
Female and male . . . God created both. And oddly that is now one of the most controversial things Christians believe on the very white, very wealthy fringes of global culture. Sadly, those fringes are dominate in some places in the United States. Most of the world supports marriage between a man and a woman, because people believe both the woman’s and the man’s voice is necessary to raising a child. All loves are not equal because some loves cannot... Read more
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