10.15.2021

Pascal's Pensées: Week 30, The Interrogation of the World

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407. Philosophers: they surprise the ordinary run of men. Christians: they surprise the philosophers.  /// As regular readers know, I tend t...
10.14.2021

Calvary as Theophany: Part 2, The Lamb Who Was Slain from the Foundation of the World

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So, Calvary is not an event in the life of God, a moment of change or transition in how God feels about us. Calvary is, rather, a window int...
10.13.2021

Calvary as Theophany: Part 1, The Death of Jesus as an Event or an Apocalypse?

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I want to devote three posts to understanding the death of Jesus upon the cross as a theophany.  Most people, I'm assuming, understand t...
10.12.2021

The World Beyond Your Head: Part 8, Becoming Attentional Designers and Architects

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Related to the notion of "extended cognition" Matthew B. Crawford makes another point in  The World Beyond Your Head  that interse...
10.11.2021

The World Beyond Your Head: Part 7, Enchantment Jigs

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Another point of connection between Matthew B. Crawford's  The World Beyond Your Head  and Hunting Magic Eels comes from Crawford's...
10.08.2021

Pascal's Pensées: Week 29, Falling in Love

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377. What a long way it is between knowing God and loving him! /// Pascal's thought here reminds me of the quote attributed to Fr. Pedro...
10.07.2021

The World Beyond Your Head: Part 6, An Age of Authenticity?

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Continuing our reflections about the Ache (see Part 5), Matthew B. Crawford's  The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in ...
10.06.2021

The World Beyond Your Head: Part 5, The Weariness of the Self

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Another location of contact between Matthew B. Crawford's The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction...
10.05.2021

The World Beyond Your Head: Part 4, Not a Jump of the Will

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Again, much of the argument in Matthew B. Crawford's book  The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distractio...
10.04.2021

The World Beyond Your Head: Part 3, The Attachment Point

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In Hunting Magic Eels I connect attention to an outward-facing, eccentric posture toward the world. Attention draws us out of ourselves.  I...
10.01.2021

Pascal's Pensées: Week 28, Recognized by God and the Angels

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308. Saints have their power, their splendor, their victory, their luster, and do not need either carnal or intellectual greatness, which ha...
9.30.2021

The World Beyond Your Head: Part 2, Simone Weil On Attention

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I quote Simone Weil in Hunting Magic Eels : Attention is the only faculty of the soul that gives access to God. Given how vital attention wa...
9.29.2021

The World Beyond Your Head: Part 1, Reclaiming the Real

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I want to share some posts gathering notes, quotes, and random thoughts about Matthew B. Crawford's book The World Beyond Your Head: On ...
9.28.2021

Tiny Sins

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Do not shrug [daily sins] aside because they are small; fear them, rather, because they are many. Listen, these sins are tiny, they aren'...
9.27.2021

Perception is Metaphysical

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A quote from C.S. Lewis' book  Miracles :  In all my life I have met only one person who claims to have seen a ghost. And the interestin...
9.24.2021

Pascal's Pensées: Week 27, So Sensitive to Minor Things

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  427. Thus the fact that there exist people who are indifferent to the loss of their being and the peril of an eternity of wretchedness is ...
9.23.2021

Evolution and the Fall: Death as Curse

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This is a follow up to yesterday's post about death, evolution, and Eden. You'll need to read that post to get what I'm saying h...
9.22.2021

Eden, Death, Evolution and the Fall

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Many progressive, liberal Christians are perfectly contented to accept the reigning biological consensus regarding the evolutionary origins ...
9.21.2021

When Morality Becomes Materialistic: Why Everyone Is a Victim Now

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It's no surprise my pointing out that, wherever you look, everyone is a victim. Even people with cultural and material privilege and pow...
9.20.2021

The Lord's Prayer

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I pray the Lord's Prayer multiple times a day, and have for many years. And over that span I've come to appreciate the prayer's ...
9.17.2021

Pascal's Pensées: Week 26, It Is Hard for a Rich Person to Enter the Kingdom of Heaven

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57. It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have all one needs. /// Jesus, notoriously, once said, "It is hard for a rich pers...
9.16.2021

Grace and the Devil

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The greatest hindrance to faith is again and again just the pride and anxiety of our human hearts. We would rather not live by grace. Someth...
9.15.2021

Is Psalm 109 an Imprecatory Psalm?

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I'd always assumed that Psalm 109 was an imprecatory psalm.  You'll recall that imprecatory psalms are psalms that call down curses ...
9.14.2021

The Modern World and Hope

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We are eschatological creatures. To flourish we need a horizon, a goal, a telos, a destination if not a destiny. Lacking this, we wander, li...
9.13.2021

On Being Radical

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"Be radical--be radical--be not too damned radical!"             --Walt Whitman This advice strikes me as similar to one of my fav...
9.10.2021

Pascal's Pensées: Week 25, Mommy Let You Use Her iPad Now Look at You

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136. However sad a person may be, if you can persuade them to take up some diversion they will be happy while it lasts, and however happy a ...
9.09.2021

In Praise of Old Churches and the Dangers of Founding Pastors

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Like many, I've been following the The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast hosted by Christianity Today, the story of  Mark Driscoll, th...
9.08.2021

The Metaphysics of Petitionary Prayer

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As regular readers know, I've been writing a lot here about God's non-competitive relation with the world, dipping into the work of ...
9.07.2021

Scattering Seeds of Light

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There's an interesting bit of poetry in Psalm 97:11.  Many modern translations of the line go with something like "light shines (or...
9.06.2021

On Meaning in Life: Part 5, Faith and Meaning

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So, meaning in life is a cord woven from three threads. Coherence. Purpose. Mattering. Our life has a story, a story that matters and is goi...