Archive for "Apr 2010"

What’s scary: “making a difference”

Cartoon courtesy of American Hell I’m going to go out on a limb here and I may alienate some folks, but I’m getting used to that. So here goes: What scares me are people who wake up every morning determined to “make a difference.” This probably sounds incredibly cynical, but I don’t think it is. [...]

Straight from the big machine shop in the sky

Binx Bolling, in Walker Percy‘s novel The Moviegoer, says: Beauty is a whore. Ten years I pursued beauty and gave no thought to money. I listened to the lovely tunes of Mahler and felt a sickness in my very soul. Now I pursue money and on the whole feel better. I kind of understand what [...]

Let’s all die together

I am preaching this weekend. My text is Acts 9.36-42, in which the Apostle Peter revives Tabitha from death. So I’m going to talk about death in the middle of the Easter season. Death, you know, is a prerequisite for resurrection. It is not incidental to it, nor is it avoidable. If we are to [...]

Oh, what a beautiful syzygy

Total solar eclipse of 11 August 1999. Image by Luc Viatour. Click on image for a better view As a scientist, I don’t really go for the whole evidence of God in nature thing. Psalms 19.1-6 tells us that “the heavens declare the glory of God,” but I’m not so sure. I think if you [...]

There is no security

It should be obvious from the previous two posts that this website is very much about ignorance of a certain kind. Even the wisest and most learned of us is radically ignorant in the way I’m talking about. Now, this may be misunderstood to mean that anything should be allowed. As an example: If we [...]

(Learned) ignorance is bliss

Nicholas of Cusa, by the Master of the Life of the Virgin “If we can fully attain unto [knowledge of our ignorance], we will attain unto learned ignorance. For a man — even one very well versed in learning — will attain unto nothing more perfect than to be found to be most learned in [...]

Step 1: Forget what you know

It is difficult to forget what you know. Yet often we are asked to let go of our handles, our assumptions, our frames of reference. All hope of finding new life is lost if we cling. Our presumptions about what we know, even our understanding, whether or not consciously held, can be stumbling blocks to [...]