Category Archives: Uncategorized

My church has this tradition called “guess who’s coming for lunch”, where a Sunday is set aside, speaking to those who want to participate, for the community to sign up to either host or be hosted for lunch following the service. Names are collected and paired by the church staff, thus who you are gatheringContinue reading “Lunch, Conversation and Crisis: Learning What it Means to Tell Our Stories in Hope”

*spoiler warning for Last Breathe In 2018, a British documentary titled Last Breathe, directed by Richard da Costa and Alex Parkinson, detailed the story of diver Chris Lemons, one of a series of workers occupying what has been stated as “one of the most dangerous occupations in the world”, saturation diving with the task ofContinue reading “Last Breathe, NDE’s, And Different Approaches To The Experience of Death”

James Monaco’s (fourth edition) How To Read a Film is a monumental and necessary read for anyone interested in understanding the art of film. It does get fairly technical, and the later chapters lean heavily into the functional details of the form, but it is framed by some incredible theory and often profound thematic insights,Continue reading “How To Read a Film: Learning How To See This World Anew”

Near the end of Alizah Holstein’s captivating memoir, My Roman History, documenting her journey from Portland to Rome, and subsequently her journey into academia and ultimately out the other side, she poses an exercise. One that anyone can try. Think back to a critical juncture in your life Think about the narrative you have builtContinue reading “Finding Oneself Present in History”

First off, if you haven’t heard of the book Judaism Is About Love: Recovering the Heart of Jewish Life by Shai Held, look it up, track down a copy, it will change your life. I say this as a Christian. It not only lead me to an enriched understanding of Judaism, it’s humble and gracious approach toContinue reading “This World is About Love: Finding God at the Intersection of Emotion and Action”

This feels like such a random read and response, but its what I’ve been mulling over these past couple days. In a Globe and Mail article penned by Canadian author Katherine Johnson, she laments a culture in which “we are living in a time when people do not take social invitations seriously.” Or, as sheContinue reading “The “Sorry, I Can’t Make it Tonight Era: Where Social Obligation Meets Social Hiearchy”

Its interesting how paradigm shifting works can quickly begin to reframe everything around it. This is what happens when you exchange one lens for another. In this case I’m thinking about Jason Staple’s monumental work Paul and the Resurrection of Israel: Jews, Former Gentiles, Israelites. In it he proposes a blind spot in common theologicalContinue reading “Luke 14: Considering the Lens Through Which We Read the Scriptures”

“It is clear to what a degree the discovery- that is, the revelation- of a sacred space possesses existential value for religious man; for nothing can begin, nothing can be done, without a previous orientation- and any orientation implies aquiring a fixed point. It is for this reason that religious man has always sought toContinue reading “The Sacred and the Profane: Discovering The Power of Mystery in a Secularized World”

In his book Light of the mind, Light of the World: illuminating Science Through Faith, Spencer Klaven examines the history of the modern scientfic enterprise through the lens of the mind-matter divide. He notes that science, used in this modernist sense, can only hand us a representation of reality, not Reality itself, and shows howContinue reading “The Light of the Mind, the Light of the World: Where Cinema and Reality Collide”

I’m presently working through a book by Sarah Irving-Stonebraker called Priests of History: Stewarding the Past in an Ahistoric Age. In it Irving-Stonebraker makes the case that that we (the modern West) are living in an “ahistorical age.” By ahistorical she means a time that is without a history and a time that is againstContinue reading “Priests of History and The Invention of Prehistory: Learning to Navigate an Ahistorical Age”