On August 21, 2017 I watched a partial eclipse from a bench in the middle of Oklahoma Baptist University’s campus. About 85% of the sun was covered by the moon for a few minutes. There were hundreds of students and faculty standing or sitting around the grounds staring (with eye protection) up at the sky. The spectacle was eerie and impressive. Yesterday, April 8, 2024, I drove about an hour south into Michigan to witness three and a half minutes of total eclipse. Even though it took significantly longer to get home, the trip was well worth it. The actual event was spectacular. “Awe inspiritin ..read more

Sin first arose in this world when Satan asked a simple question of Eve, “Did God actually say ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?’” (Gen 3:1) And really, Eve might not have been sure because she wasn’t around when God gave that command to Adam (Gen 2:16-17). Maybe Adam was holding out on her or hadn’t heard right. Satan’s question was reasonable, in a way. Could she really trust Adam or his story about a command she hadn’t witnessed herself? The serpent was right in front of her to make his case that she would not certainly die if she ate of the fruit. That’s often the way Satan wor ..read more

Will technological innovation lead to the demise of the reader? Is the reader as a distinct type of person an endangered species in an age of podcasts and screens? These are the questions at the heart of Lina Bolzoni’s delightful volume, A Marvelous Solitude: The Art of Reading in Early Modern Europe. This book is the product of a series of lectures by Bolzoni, professor emerita of Italian Literature at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. Thus the chapters are somewhat episodic and flow in a thematic arc rather than as an integral argument. However, the consistent weight of Bolzoni’s respons ..read more

I’ve watched three small humans learn to walk. None of them learned to walk in exactly the same manner or at exactly the same point in their development. However, there were some common developmental steps along the way. Once a child gets enough body control to support their own head, they then progress to rolling over. That motion eventually shifts to scooting, which then transitions to crawling. This is the point where parenting gets much more difficult, as the child is no longer basically stationary. But after crawling most children progress to “cruising” where they hang onto tables, couche ..read more

I am, by habit and perhaps natural inclination, drawn to the Larry the Cableguy philosophy of productivity: “Git r done.” That mentality is useful when it comes to ripping through menial administrative tasks, overcoming mountains of small physical jobs, or just generally getting my lengthy to-do list completed. It’s also a good way to make sure you rarely produce content that requires deep thinking or reflection. And, in many cases, it can lead to burnout. Cal Newport’s book, Slow Productivity: The Art of Accomplishment without Burnout, is an attempt to shift knowledge workers from what he cal ..read more

We’ve all experienced the story turned hostage situation. Sometimes we’re captured by an elderly relative, sometimes it’s a co-worker, sometimes it’s a neighbor, sometimes it’s our child, and sometimes it’s a church member. Someone begins by telling a story and it soon becomes apparent that no one may get out alive without creative escape plan. What starts out as the history of the local ice cream stand turns into the life history of the local park ranger and her family connection to Vince Lombardi. No one knows how it came to that, but everyone (except the storyteller, sometimes) wishes it ha ..read more

We’re now into the second week of the New Year. After last week’s overwhelming bustle, the gym and pool at the YMCA are beginning to clear out again. Some people make it into February with their resolutions, but many don’t make it beyond the third or fourth attempt at starting a new way of life. By no means am I an expert in life, productivity, or consistency in all things. I’ve overworked, I’ve been underproductive, I’ve had success for a while but also failed in attempts at staying in decent physical shape. However, based on my observations in my own life, the reading I’ve done, and everythi ..read more

To call someone a Puritan is rarely a compliment in modern vernacular. Even in the days that Puritans roamed the earth, the term was intended to be a dismissive insult, designed to marginalize those who were seeking to reform the practices of the Church of England and improve the morality of society in general. I remember my high school English teacher intentionally skipping the Puritans in American literature because it was “too boring.” Of course, what typically remains when that era gets covered is a sample like Jonathan Edwards’s sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” That’s a ser ..read more

Sometimes our Christianity can come to feel like a burden instead of a blessing. We are freed in Christ from the eternal penalty of our sin, but the process of sanctification continually reminds us of the weight of our continued sin. John reminds us, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 Jn 1:8) We are sinful people and yet Jesus calls us to “be perfect, as [our] heavenly Father is perfect.” (Mt 5:48) As the reformers noted, we are simul iustus et pecattor––at once justified and a sinner. How do we respond to this tension in our spiritual existence? K ..read more

For Americans the year 1776 has legendary status. It is, of course, the year that the Continental Congress declared the United States independent from the colonial power of Britian. As it turns out, the year was actually globally significant in a number of other ways. The Industrial Revolution was getting into full swing, there were a number of significant philosophical movements afoot whose effects we are still discovering today. Andrew Wilson’s book, Remaking the World: How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West is an attempt to bring many of those streams together to help explain how the worl ..read more