Seeking Wisdom

“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” We are not asked to deny our cravings. Neither are we asked to deny our vices. We are not asked to gain further resolve in the pursuit of holiness in order to deny any of our own weaknesses. We are asked to deny the totality of our current selves in preference for the new self Christ will fashion within us. I’ve written before about how Christ’s call is not just a new moral standard. If it were it would be an impossible one. It seems to me that the Christian vision of discipleship is actually quite different than that of the Jewish, though this is only in my perception and I am quite ignorant of Judaism as it extends beyond the Old Testament. It is less about behaving a certain way than it is about having a certain state of being. All our righteous actions garner some of their value in that they have a tendency to move us closer to the type of being God desires us to be. I’m not saying t...

"Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” There is no progress without pain. If we really want to become a fundamentally different person this entails and necessitates the mortification and destruction of every attribute which we currently consider our “personality.” There’s something I’ve noticed. I remember while listening to the Carnegie book him talking about “being serious about improving your personality” and that statement really struck me. I don’t think most of the people I talk to really consider a personality something to be improved. It can be changed, but there is no conception of the value of certain traits, they are simply different ways of being. I think part of this is the culture of self-acceptance and self-esteem. By these teachings if some trait is part of your personality then it is intrinsically valuable via its inclusion in y...

Jesus speaks always in parables. I think there could be many reasons for this, it is the way prophets traditionally speak, they traditionally speak that way out of fear of those in power, and I think He intended us to think a little bit, to put some effort into interpretation. There is a response to complexity, especially among people inexperienced or uninterested in the field, that recoils in anger. They demand why such a thing is not simple. If it were a matter of no importance why could it not be simple, as the details of an unimportant thing are less important still? If it is a matter of great spiritual importance they demand why a God who loves simplicity should make something so complicated. Nay, they argue. He did not make it that way! Religion is just a human invention about God! While I suppose it is true that Jesus did not lay out the hierarchy of the Church or elaborate extensively on such theological issues as were explored by Aquinas and More, which was probably ...

A while ago, while hanging out with some friends from high school I suddenly thought of how easily I could have not been friends with any of them anymore. It was entirely within my power to, after I graduated, no longer talk to or hang out with them. Here’s an interesting question though, in doing that, was I making them not matter to me (as our relationship ceased) or was it a sign that they never mattered to me? I suppose it could be the latter, and I think it has been in other cases in my life. In those circumstances I think we should examine our motives for being dishonest in our friendships. There is a distinction there though, there are some people we are simply kind to who mistake us as their friends, when we really don’t have much desire to associate with them. Did we intentionally deceive someone, or did they mistake our kindness to them for an affection for them? Here I mean not affection as in the general love for others that makes being kind to strangers easier, I mean...

“We meet no ordinary people in our lives.” That was my senior quote, it’s from CS Lewis but I’ve had much trouble figuring out the book. I want to explore several aspects of this idea. Firstly, our destiny. Secondly, our creation. And third, the secular way in which this is true. I think I will explore the secular version first as it seems the least obvious and powerful to me. Simply by virtue of living in a causal universe, no two people are precisely alike. The only reason we use twin studies is because they are the most alike groups, but even they have marked differences. And usually examining those marked differences is the purpose of the study. If one believes in a single universe, then there is exactly one of everyone. Everyone is utterly, inescapably, and completely distinct as a human being simply because of the physical facts of the matter. You will struggle to meet someone born on the same day in the same hospital as you, unless obviously you are twins. You ...

If I can finish all the songs I’ve got started right now I’ll be ready to put out an album finally. I think that realization is the reason that I’m finding it difficult to sit down and write lyrics when I have the music already made, or to sit down and make the music when I have the lyrics already made. I think that’s a pretty common issue though, this fear of completion. Because while it’s yet a work in progress it can’t, at least fairly, be judged. But as soon as we push submit, as soon as we say, “I have done all that I will do in regards to this” we’re opening ourselves up to criticism. Because we either gave it our best effort or we didn’t. And either is a harrowing reality. If we gave our best effort then any shortcoming in the resultant piece stems from a lack of talent on our part, we worry what our “finished” product will reveal about us. Our idiosyncrasies, our weaknesses, like just then I spelled idiosyncrasies wrong. I immediately spellchecked it rather than finishi...

Read Laudato Si in Full (For Free) Here “98. Jesus lived in full harmony with creation, and others were amazed: “What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?” (Mt 8:27). His appearance was not that of an ascetic set apart from the world, nor of an enemy to the pleasant things of life. Of himself he said: “The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard!’”   (Mt 11:19). He was far removed from philosophies which despised the body, matter and the things of the world. Such unhealthy dualisms, nonetheless, left a mark on certain Christian thinkers in the course of history and disfigured the Gospel. Jesus worked with his hands, in daily contact with the matter created by God, to which he gave form by his craftsmanship. It is striking that most of his life was dedicated to this task in a simple life which awakened no admiration at all: “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?” (Mk 6:3). In this way he sanctified huma...

Forgiveness is not something I’ve struggled with greatly. Well that’s a lie. Just as I was thinking of that sentence I thought of a grudge I held for months. Well, I’ll talk about that first but what I want to get to is a story that illustrates how difficult I find it to seek forgiveness. For the longest time I still harbored hate in my heart for one of the strength coaches on the Michigan Football team. He was so rude, disrespectful, and unreasonable that the thought of him still makes me bristle. For months after I quit whenever he would randomly come into my mind I couldn’t help but feel nearly rageful. I couldn’t help thinking that I was hoping he was doing poorly, that he was unhappy, that he was somehow getting his comeuppance for treating people so unfairly. Well, he did get fired a couple months ago, along with the rest of the strength training staff, but that doesn’t make me feel any better. (Side note: real leaders take the blame for failures instead of placing the b...

“horse and chariot he has cast into the sea.” Link to Daily Readings There are Israelites who regret the Exodus in the reading. They ask Moses why they should not have continued as servants of the Egyptians, rather than die in the desert. More directly, they feel a desire to follow the Pharaoh simply because of his temporal power, in spite of the way he treats them personally. There is a human tendency to revere not only excellence, but excellent people. The latter of which can be problematic. Talk to any teenager about what music they enjoy and chances are you will discover that idol worship, well more accurately hero worship, is alive and well in the twenty-first century. Somehow, when a person has gained significant enough artistic or athletic recognition (there are other avenues, but these are the two I see most often) even religious people will cease to see these as another Child of God. I see it in some friends tweeting about “Queen Bee” fanatically or people wearing...

The following is a reflection I wrote Wednesday night last week, after our second day of work on the site. I plan on having a couple-three more posts about this trip as I unpack everything that happened and everything I learned. --------------------------------------------- Why did God send me on this ASB? I always know the answer. I am well-informed, put together, I've got it figured out. But how much of that is because of where I'm from, who I am in the merely demographic sense? Is the level of organization in my life a result of valiant efforts to clear through wilderness, or due to the fact that I was born into order and prosperity? How diligent am I doing homework on a dirt floor? How politically idealistic am I when I've lost cousins, uncles, and grandparents to slogans and ideologies? How smart am I when I'm ignorant? When I don't know the history, or geography, or the culture. What do I have to say that's worth saying? What can I say [in Span...