Category Archives: Spiritual life

Completely misreading the situation

Posted on November 28, 2015 by salooper57

My friend Rob was spending a couple of days in Rome, seeing the sights. Instead of using public transportation, he opted to walk to the tourist spots. That way, if he saw something on the way that interested him, he … Continue reading →

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How to debug the programming

Posted on November 15, 2015 by salooper57

Back in the days of DOS, my first personal computer was giving me problems. It would sometimes fail to boot up from its “massive” 40 megabyte hard drive. I’d push the power button repeatedly until it finally started. When I … Continue reading →

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Playing pinball with a new Lincoln

Posted on November 7, 2015 by salooper57

It is often said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. It seems to me that is not so much a definition of insanity as it is a description of … Continue reading →

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Tear down this wall!

Posted on October 17, 2015 by salooper57

One of the chief difficulties people (skeptics, seekers, and believers) have with Christianity is the idea that it doesn’t belong to this world, that religion and reality don’t intersect. It’s assumed that religion is a kind of fantasy world that … Continue reading →

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Back to the present: how future Americans will see us

Posted on September 5, 2015 by salooper57

When reading European authors from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, one frequently runs across descriptions of America and Americans. Americans are either burly, uncultured, do-it-yourselfers or rich, ambitious, self-made men. As a nation America is emotional and reckless, … Continue reading →

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A rose by any other name

Posted on August 29, 2015 by salooper57

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Those are of course Juliet’s lines in Act II of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. If only Romeo’s last name were something other … Continue reading →

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A rich and lasting heritage

Posted on August 22, 2015 by salooper57

I was a little anxious. I was guest speaker at our church’s youth group, sitting before a crowd of teenagers who had been encouraged to ask any question they wanted. They asked really good questions: Why does God allow suffering? … Continue reading →

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The most difficult field of study

Posted on August 15, 2015 by salooper57

The biblical book of Psalms contains 150 poems or praises (151 in the Orthodox Church) and has often been referred to as the songbook of the Church. Indeed, in some times and places, the psalms were the only songs in … Continue reading →

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Be careful not to stare into the wrong eyes

Posted on August 8, 2015 by salooper57

I was in the Istanbul airport this summer, standing at Passport Control, while a uniformed officer went through my papers. He was scowling. He looked at my passport picture, then at me, then back at my papers. I couldn’t tell … Continue reading →

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We were made that way

Posted on July 25, 2015 by salooper57

Lady Gaga sings about Mary Magdalene, the friend and disciple of Jesus. Katy Perry refers to the biblical hero Esther and writes about being called and chosen. The Clash refers to the floods of God, the walls of Jericho and … Continue reading →

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