Wandering Elder

A short aside: A few weeks back, I wrote "The Best and the Brightest?"  If you found it interesting, you might want to read this article: www.yahoo.com/politics/are-we-getting-the-leaders-1397064998158390.html and read about a very under the radar speech. See what you think. Several weeks ago, I began putting my notes together for a study of the New Testament book (or epistle, which is more correct) of Hebrews.  As I was looking over those notes, I found my attention turning to one of my favorite passages from Plato - the allegory of the cave.  Found in Plato's Republic , it is a fantastic observation on the nature of truth and what the consequences of truth can be. Briefly, the allegory is that people are trapped in a cave, in the dark, with only shadows projected on a wall in front of them.  Those shadows are the illusion of reality that we accept.  There are, however, those who manage to break free and leave the cave to find the 'real' world beyond. ...

As this is Holy Week, I find that I ponder a very particular aspect of the story of Jesus' passion that involves an event around the Last Supper.  Jesus has just announced that one of the people at the table with him was going to betray him.  In the oldest version of this story, found in the Gospel of Mark, we read that after Jesus had said these words, "They began to be sorrowful, and to say to him one after another, 'Is it I?" The response is telling and troubling.  It wasn’t that they were going to betray Jesus, it was that they all thought they might .    They all knew they had the potential for betrayal. Therefore the need for Jesus to offer clarification, which apparently was only understood much later.  Even when Judas leaves the table, there still seems to be some concern that it wasn't him and that the betrayer still dwells among them like some sleeper agent; that there might be another who is the unknowing, unwitting betrayer of this m...

Logic is not the natural disposition of human beings.  Sometimes it appears to not even be our goal.  It appears, more often than not, that we would rather remain in a superstitious, folklore driven state of mind than to pursue logic.  It also seems obvious that we will follow people who seem to have our best interests in mind or who give voice to our hopes or dreams or even our hatreds.  And once we give them our loyalty, logic be damned because it has become a matter of belief, even one of faith. It is how Jim Jones managed to convince the people to drink the poison.  It is how Hitler came to power.  It is also how the Apostle Paul founded churches and how Jesus became important beyond his temporal context. What you see quickly from these four names is that the list is not necessarily one of evil and good, but that the people who followed (or follow) these names have ascribed to them ultimate truth.  The nefariousness or benevolence of these to w...

With Super Tuesday behind us, I have to wonder.  Is this  the best we have to offer ourselves?  Let's assume that Clinton and Trump are going to be our two major choices for president.  My question is: how did it come down to these two?  Are they the best?  Certainly not. One need only have listened to the news a few years back to have heard enough about both of these candidates to know two things. 1.  You can't trust them except  for the fact that... 2.  They will do anything to succeed. Clinton has the liberal label and Trump courts the evangelical Christians.  I am not sure how to get a handle on either of those two facts.  Especially the Trump/evangelical connection.  How does a man who has difficulty correctly citing the Bible - in particular the letters of Paul in the New Testament (remember the "two Corinthians" statement?) - become the champion, defender, and candidate for the religious right?  I mean, when t...

I recently heard a story on the news about a school in Idaho that was considering teaching its faculty to use and carry guns.  The idea was that the teachers, now apparently to all be armed, would be the defenders of the school in the event of some attack.  As one administrator said in the interview, "We're taking back our school." I had to wonder: taking it back from what ?  Had this school been under siege?  Were they oppressed or in grave danger of invasion or of an imminent threat from evildoers?  I didn't get to hear the entire story so I don't know if something had happened in Idaho that I missed - with shootings and the like becoming more common we, as a culture, have lost the ability to keep track as well as, it seems, the ability to be shocked or truly outraged. If there was no direct threat, then the idea of "taking back" sounds more ominous than comforting.  Because to take something back means to re-establish control or order onto a situa...

A few years ago, I proposed a theory to a few friends of mine which was this: chosen predestination.  By that I meant that it could be that we have free will, but can voluntarily choose to set it aside and accept a path structured and laid out by another. In the conversation in which I proposed the idea, I was speaking in particular about a journey of faith in which one might select to stop living the life as they have been and selecting instead to accept a path set out by God - or a path that it would appear God had set out. The argument was this: Perhaps God lays out the path a follower is asked to take.  Accepting that path means to abdicate free will and follow the prescribed, perhaps predetermined path.  It isn't that free will doesn't exist, but that one is setting it aside for something else.  I would suppose, however, that at any time one could again return to free will, exiting the path laid out. I believe we see Jesus wrestle with just this idea, espe...

There has been some buzz on the Internet about a debate...no that isn't the right word.  Neither is discussion because that implies civility.  Let's just say there has been a 'back and forth' between the rapper B.o.B and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson over whether or not the earth is flat.  B.o.B. claims that it is.  Tyson says it isn't. Tyson is correct. It is distressing to see anyone still professing the world is flat.  Though I have to admit that I know people who might  think so.  This particular page in the flat-earth debate (who would have believed it would even be a debate any longer) points to the fact that there are plenty of people who are scientifically illiterate. Yet we reveled in that illiteracy for years by denying global warming or that smoking has negative effects on the body.  Like, you know, death.  I am sure that at some point persons like Tyson and the EPA want to throw their hands up and say, "Fine.  Live...