Now, with God’s help, I shall become myself. (Soren Kierkegaard)
Thomas Wolfe told us that we can’t go home again, since “the old forms and systems … are changing all the time.” We can’t go home, Wolfe explained, because home isn’t there anymore – at least the home that memory recalls.
But I would go further. We can’t go home again because we’ve never been home before. A place – like the place I grew up, 910 Lake Avenue, Elyria, Ohio – is not home. Home is where a person is himself, and none of us is yet himself or herself.
Once I heard a preacher say, almost regretfully, “Well, we’re all just human, aren’t we?” And I thought to myself, “No, we aren’t – not yet, anyway. But, God willing, we will be.” We call ourselves human beings, but we are really human becomings.
Christians believe that thus far in history there has only been one truly human being and he was, ironically, God. (If you object and say that Adam and Eve were truly human, I would counter that the biblical story suggests they were proto-humans, the fullness of their humanity having gone unrealized.)
When we come home it will not be to a place built with brick and mortar. Home will not be a place created through political activism. No amount of money can purchase a ticket home. We will only come home when we’ve come to ourselves, and we can only come to ourselves with the help of another.
That’s what this blog is really about. It will touch on politics and money, family and society, theology and biblical studies, but it will not roam too far from the way home – the way that is, paradoxically, a person.
I’m writing to invite you to join the new Bible Gateway Blogger Grid (BG²). If you’d like details, please email me. Thanks.
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I’d enjoy seeing these thoughts in The Way Home put into a small booklet form that can be passed on to others. I enjoy reflecting on each of them. Thank you.
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That’s encouraging, Diana. Others have suggested the same thing, so I’m thinking about it. Best to you!
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Shayne, I so enjoy your “From the Pastor” columns in the Holland Sentinel. (Every time I read one, I think of our great conversation about the Apprentice Series a few years ago.) After I read your superb column this week I decided to look up your blog and felt immediately at home; I use the same theme for my blog. I’d love to have you check my blog out: http://www.living as apprentices.com
Blessings on your writing, Karen Bables
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Hi Karen – so good to hear from you! I’ve looked at the blog before but am anxious to look again. Best to you! – Shayne
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Very nice and refreshing blog. Thank you.
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Thanks, Catherine, for reading and taking the time to comment.
Gratefully, Shayne
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My pleasure! Thanks for your work.
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Dear Shayne,
For years, I’ve been reading your “Religion” Page columns in the Holland Sentinel; to much applause BTW.
And this week’s entry on our body and soul cosmos (Why the Universe has Wiggle Room).
The wave and particle debate is huge ramifications in re Christian theology. I’m an evangelical/ecumenical retired Christian pastor.
Send more of your things on the creation/evolution discussion.
I would love to be in dialogue with you going forward. I help lead a men’s discussion group on topics like this. Thank you. I feel like I know you, having read so many of your fine columns. Well thought-out and presented. JRK
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John,
Sounds like a men’s group I’d love. I have enjoyed reading laymen’s books on physics, but have not spent much time in biology, so I’m not a good resource person on the evolution/creation debate. I will look through some of my older stuff and see if I have anything that will be helpful. Paul Davies book, “The Goldilocks Enigma is a helpful overview of the history of physics and the possible conclusions regarding origins. I don’t agree with Davies, but he is fair, and I appreciate him. His first book, “The Accidental Universe” is a great resource, if you can find it.
Thanks for reading, and for your kind words. Grateful for every friend for peace.
Shayne
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Shayne, would love to see your response to my comment below this article of yours.
http://www.hollandsentinel.com/article/20151009/ENTERTAINMENTLIFE/151009096
Thanks,
Andy
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Andy,
I’ll reread the article and check out your comment as soon as I get a chance. Thanks for reading, and for taking the time to comment.
Shayne
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Always enjoy reading your blog. Calming especially in today’s he tic and noisy world. Thank you .
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Thanks, Diane. So kind of you to take the time to comment and encourage!
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I will be the first to admit that I am not a man of religion ( or more accurately “church goer”), so to speak, but I do enjoy reading your “Another View” articles in the Daily Reporter. Many of them really speak to me and provide me with opportunities for introspection and alternative perspectives…
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Arthur, I’m glad you enjoy reading the articles and so grateful you’ve taken the time to comment on the blog. Best to you. -Shayne
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Hello! I recently saw a piece of yours published in the Peoria Journal Star. I believe you may have misattributed a quote to Aristotle that is actually Will Durant. https://www.pjstar.com/opinion/20190104/shayne-looper-dont-make-resolution-make-habit
Just an FYI.
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Good catch, Gretchen. You’re right. It was Durant, and he was summarizing Aristotle’s more cumbersome prose. Sorry for being sloppy – hope Durant and Aristotle (and my readers) will forgive me. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Shayne
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Pastor, I too enjoy your columns in the paper and just read the “New Earth” perspective using the train analogy. I’m curious where you see our unbelieving friends and relatives. Do they stay on the train with all the impurities?
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Your question is exactly the one I ask myself. I think there is clear biblical support for the idea presented in the newspaper column (and blog), some of which I outlined and much of which I did not have space to include. There is also other biblical data which must be taken seriously: the abundant support for the idea of judgment and loss for those who (variously) “do not know God,” “do not glorify God,” who “do not believe [in Jesus]”, are “unrighteous,” etc.
How these two sets of biblical data relate is the question. My understanding is that those who do not want God to be God, who reject him in his self-giving in Jesus Christ, will not enter the life of the new age. In my word picture from the column, they will deboard the one train but not board the other. For such people, the terminal at the end of the line is terminal. In the words of the Scripture, they experience “death” and do not have “eternal life” or (literally) “the life of the age.” One of the reasons I write is to help such people see the hope and beauty of the gospel of Christ.
Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment – and for your great question. I sure appreciate it. Feel free to comment further – even disagree!
Best to you,
Shayne
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I read Shayne’s column in my Sunday paper and loved it. So now I’m interested in reading more posts like it.
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That’s really encouraging, Tom. Thank you!
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Hi, Shayne, I read your article entitled, “Baptism, the Church and the Drama of Decision” in my local newspaper. It was very encouraging to see part of God’s perfect plan represented so well. It’s clear from many statements and examples in the New Testament that it is through our immersion by faith in Christ that God provides forgiveness and His Spirit to His new child.
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Thanks, Paul, for reading and for your encouraging note.
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Just reading a column, “Jesus suggests money is deceitful.” Not sure you actually wrote this as, although money can be used by people deceitfully, I’m not sure how an inanimate piece of paper can be “deceitful” without human intervention of some kind. Same way a gun has no intrinsic value until someone picks it up.
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Hi, Jerry. I get what you are saying. I wrote the line, “He suggested that wealth was deceitful…” based this on Jesus’s words in Mark 4:19, where he compares people to a plant that bears no fruit because it is choked by another plant (thorns). He says, “the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.” The deceit, I suppose, lies in our society’s idea of what money is and what it does. Money is, to paraphrase Austin Farrar (though I believe he was using someone else’s line) a “good but dangerous gift of God.”
Best to you. – Shayne
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I so enjoy your columns in the Daytona Beach News Journal on Saturday mornings
It sets the tone for the.day, in a good way, and it always hits home.
Thank you
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