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The Age of Confusion?

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Google Image I’m a big fan of wildlife and outdoor videos, mostly on YouTube. I recently watched a video showing half a dozen toddler bears exiting their den among boulders, seeing the outside for the first time. They were hesitant, afraid, but obviously eager to explore the world outside their birthplace. They were the model of cuteness but seemed to be confused about everything they saw and heard, darting here and there, trying to make sense of everything. They would often stand at the entrance to the den to try to absorb what they were seeing, then dash into the den again, apparently seeing the world as too scary. I couldn’t help but think about how many humans are confused and fearful in a similar way. In many countries and neighborhoods, fear is a way of life. And, in many western countries, including the U.S., this seems to be the age of confusion - in politics, religion, sexuality, human relations, business and the marketplace. Like Sheep Without a Shepherd It brings to ...
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RSVP

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Google Image My wife, Amparo, and I recently bought a car, not a new one but a late model. It seemed to make the most economic sense. What didn’t make sense as we were looking at cars, is the baffling number of choices confronting the buyer. “There are over 6,000 car models (generations) sold worldwide, according to Carbrands.org, "with more than 100 car brands producing vehicles. In the U.S. market, there were 257 existing care models in 2009, and this is expected to increase to around 285 by 2023." These are the latest figures I could find. There are undoubtedly more models now. The brand of vehicle we bought offers four crossovers and SUVs, three pickup models, two sport-car models and three “commercial models.” Within the model we bought, there are five price levels, from the S to the Platinum, depending mostly on the “trim.” Huge Variety of Products Although that number of choices doesn’t make sense to me, it obviously does to the majority of car buyers, or the car m...
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Faith Like Falling in Love?

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Google Image I’ve often quoted New York Times columnist David Brooks in these blogs because I find his columns unusually insightful. And, unlike many columnists in that publication and others, he doesn’t come off as arrogant or all knowing. And I often have gotten the impression that he is sincerely seeking God. So, I was especially interested in one of his recent columns entitled, “The Shock of Faith: It’s Nothing Like I Thought It Would Be.” It indicates that he has taken another step – or maybe many more steps – on his long road to God. “When I was an agnostic,” he writes, “I thought faith was primarily about belief. Being religious was about having a settled conviction that God existed and knowing that the stories in the Bible were true. I looked for books and arguments that would convince me that God was either real or not real.” Not a "Believer" Brooks’ religious background was a mixture of occasional Jewish and Christian connections. He sometimes engaged in the f...
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Do What We’ve Always Done?

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Google Image It may not come as a surprise to most readers of this blog that the presidential election did not go my way. And I’m not encouraged by the choices for government leadership made by the winner nor by the chances they'll make America “great again” let alone better. But first, a disclaimer. Despite the above paragraph, this blog is not about politics. It’s a look at the condition of the country and the world and how it affects the outlook and the work facing those of us seeking God. I’m concerned about following the gospel message. But in case you haven’t noticed, politics and ethical and moral issues often overlap. People who share my views of the election results can’t stop asking themselves how it happened. Why did so many people, especially those who are at the bottom of the economic ladder, vote for what appears to be against their interests?    A recent article in America magazine helps answer this question. Increasingly Precarious “American workers are...
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A Religion of Impossibilities?

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Google Image Pigs Fly. People walk on walls. Catfish play the trumpet. All among things that are impossible, most would agree. Then there are the theoretical or apparent impossibilities. World Peace. Democrats and Republicans seeing eye to eye. TV shows with no advertising or fees. And then, the really heavy stuff that people of faith profess. Jesus’ resurrection, humanity’s eternal destiny, God becoming a human. Many people would place these in the same category as flying pigs. I wouldn’t. Isaiah Takes the Cake? The Judeo-Christian tradition has a long history of believing in apparent impossibilities. Perhaps the prophet Isaiah takes the cake. Yearning for a new king in the idealized tradition of King David, the prophet engages in a bit of poetry. “Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat; the calf and the young lion shall browse together, with a little child to guide them.” (Actually, I’ve seen videos of lions lying down...
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Figuring the Odds

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Google Image Many of you, when studying physics or math, may recall learning about Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician, philosopher, physicist and theologian who lived from 1623 to 1662. Pascal came up with a way of looking at “the God question” that is now called “Pascal’s Wager.” It basically argues that belief in God involves a high-stakes gamble. Paraphrasing, here’s how Pascal describes the gamble, according to Wikipedia.      ·   God is, or God isn’t. Reason can’t decide between the two.      ·   You play a game … where heads or tails turns up.      ·   You must wager. It’s not optional.      ·   Weighing the gain and the loss in wagering that God is, estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing      ·   There is here an infinity of a happy life to gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite....
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God: Busy Elsewhere?

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Google image In "Darkest Hour," a Netflix movie about Second World-War England, Winston Churchill – the frumpish prime minister who rallied his country to resist the Nazis – told King George VI: “My father was like God. Busy elsewhere.” One of my recent blogs was about the necessity of showing up – at the job, in the family, in prayer. So, what about the importance of God “showing up?” For many, God’s silence clinches their rejection of faith. God is missing in action, they say, and there’s no way to get around it. If he/she exists, you’d hear from him/her. So, learn to live without God and you’ll be much happier. Generally Happier Problem is that opinion polls don’t support the latter statement. For many years, they have shown that believers are generally happier than non-believers. But why is faith required? Why would God design things in a way that requires human beings to  believe  instead of  knowing   God directly ? Why require an intellectual and emoti...
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