Category Archives: Uncategorized

In today’s pluralist, spiritual-but-not-religious world, it’s worth asking:  Why Christianity?  A lot of people are asking that question these days, if not in words then in actions.  You know the statistics:  falling church membership, those who still attend not accepting the tenets of the historical faith, even growing atheism.  More people are content with aContinue reading “When All Else Fails”

(The first part was posted Tuesday) Walking a labyrinth is a microcosm of life lived as a disciple of Jesus, a recapitulation of the Christian life as walked between hedges. It is an exercise in faith, trusting that the labyrinth’s designer has seen to it that the obscured pathway through the hedges will indeed arriveContinue reading “Walking the Labyrinth, part 2, by Randy Thompson”

Until recently, labyrinths weren’t for me. From what I could make out, they were for people seeking that emotional warming oven known as “spirituality,” which may indeed warm but too often only leaves one half-baked.  For the life of me, I couldn’t see the point of labyrinths and certainly couldn’t imagine myself ever walking throughContinue reading “Walking a Labyrinth to Get to a Labyrinth, part 1 by Randy Thompson”

In his book, Contact, Carl Sagan satirically asks why God doesn’t place a glowing cross in the sky at night to serve as irrefutable proof of Jesus’ resurrection. One could just as well ask why God doesn’t set up a website, or place billboards around.  Why must we read and understand an ancient book toContinue reading “Why isn’t God more Obvious?”

Okay, I know you want to talk about this, and rightly so.  And since I would rather not the other posts this week hijacked in the comments thread, I am putting out a second post today. My opinion on this is no more informed than anyone else’s, so I am just going to copy someContinue reading “Impeachment?”

“There are two kinds of people,” she once decreed to me emphatically. “One kind, you can tell just by looking at them at what point they congealed into their final selves. It might be a very nice self, but you know you can expect no more surprises from it. Whereas, the other kind keep moving, changing. WithContinue reading “The Danger of Congealing”

Few stories about Jesus are more misunderstood than his clearing of the temple.   On the one hand, many people see the act, and the cursing of the fig tree which accompanies it, as little more than a burst of anger, seemingly unworthy of a great teacher and model like Jesus. The noted atheist Bertland Russel accused Jesus of “vindictive fury”Continue reading “Why did Jesus Cleanse the Temple and Curse the Fig Tree?”

Hello, friends, and welcome to the weekend. Do you play golf? Here is a great, simple tutorial you need to watch. Actually, you need to watch it even if, like me, you consider golf the biggest waste of time since Freud. The descendants of Kaiser Wilhelm II are suing the state to reclaim palaces and artworks: “TheContinue reading “Saturday Brunch, September 7, 2019”

Scrupulosity: Where OCD Meets Religion, Faith, and Belief Please take a minute and read the following article from the OCD Center of Los Angeles.  Many people probably have the notion that Obsessive Compulsion Disorder (OCD) is a somewhat harmless psychological problem that involves nothing worse than washing your hands a lot.  A somewhat more debilitatingContinue reading “Scrupulosity: Where OCD Meets Religion, Faith, and Belief”