I once popped into a professor’s office and asked him if he was looking forward to the start of school: “Not really, it gets in the way of my work.” This was deflating. Class loomed with a person that viewed teaching me as in the way of his writing and research. Sadly, I knew he was right. His work was important and cramming a version of it into my head, much simplified, was unlikely to help him or at least... Read more
If I tell people not from Houston, I moved to Houston from Los Angeles, people make pitying noises. I do not understand these noises. I love LA, loved living there, and still have dear friends who live in the Great Nowhere, but Houston does not need your pity. I have discovered Houstonians don’t have time for pity or for boasting, because they are too busy inventing the future. Why am I falling in love with Houston? First, Houston has a... Read more
Yesterday, I received the following. I cannot verify the source. My dear Wormwood, By all means focus the attention of your patient on his own generation. Our Father-Below has successfully taught each generation since before the Flood that they are special and that something has happened to change all the rules. You will recall how we convinced Noah himself that “somebody who had experienced what he had” needed the extra comfort of drink. If you focus attention on “the War”... Read more
Like a sharknado, the death of the Church is impossible, but creates buzz. Left-of-center Evangelicals are now warning that if the Evangelical church does not change younger adults will leave. This is what left-of-center Evangelicals warned my entire life, but this time they really mean it. Apparently Evangelicals are in the grip of whatever it is that left-of-center Evangelicals do not like. The problem with the thesis is many former Evangelicals are becoming Roman or Orthodox. The monks on Mount... Read more
Saint Vladimir the Great helped create Christian Russia. Given the standards of the time, he was an effective and just ruler. The same cannot be said for Vladimir Putin. Saint Vladimir brought the Kievan Rus into the Byzantine commonwealth by his conversion to Orthodoxy giving the Rus nation access to a broader cultural world. No modern person would wish a restoration of Saint Vladimir’s style of governance: Christians have learned over the centuries, particularly Orthodox Christians, what does and does... Read more
Did Jesus rise from the dead? The Gospels say He did, but lately I have bumped into more than one skeptic who claims that I should classify “the Bible” as “legendary.” Generally, he (and it almost always a he) will cite a book like the Iliad as an example of legendary material. “We know ancients produced legendary books. The Bible is just one of them.” Frequently, there is a list (almost always the same) of old books, apparently drawn from the Penguin... Read more
Kacey Musgraves has a pleasant, albeit tinny, voice. Her song “Follow Your Arrow” was a gift to me from Starbucks, so I should have a kind word or two for her as the recipient of corporate largesse generous enough to share it with me. Starbucks usually sends me songs that are either old classics or “courageous,” meaning in agreement with most of the people who drink coffee at Starbucks. The song itself is catchy enough in a Monkees way and... Read more
If a boy dreams of being placekicker for the Packers, then he is a boy. If a man dreams of kicking for the Packers at fifty, then he is delusional. Talk to enough college students and one thing they fear is someone “stealing their dreams,” but in many cases they do not have dreams they have delusions. I should know, as I have had more than a few of my own! A good education should replace delusions with dreams and... Read more
Being married twenty-seven years is better than being married one year and one reason is that I have changed. If the t-shirt slogan: “I love you, you are perfect, now change.” is funny, it is only because the second premise of the argument (“you are perfect”), contradicts the conclusion. Nobody, ever, should marry a person hd thinks is perfect. Why? First, it would be a crime against perfection unless both parties are perfect and anybody believing he is perfect and... Read more
This is the last part in an informal series on “faith” and what Christians mean by it when talking about science. Part I and Part II set up the topic. In this final part, I think about living a rational life and what it means for a Christian. What is it to be rational? The alternatives to rationality are not good. If we must think, and it seems we must, then we better do it well. Christianity is comfortable with... Read more
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