Spurgeon's Cigar

John Calvin once stated that the Christian life and all of the theologizing that goes with it could be summed up this way: "humility, humility, humility." At its core, humility has more to do with motive for action than anything else. And as present day "Christianity-at-large" has become more focused on the end result, production and "purpose," and often trying to "quantify" the Christian life in much the same way that the business world quantifies things, the art of true humility and the motive for our actions are becoming lost. Let me briefly explain my phrase humility has more to do with motive for action than anything else . We live in a world of false humility and especially so in "Christian" circles. False humility emerges when action and motive do not align as they might appear to align. Let me be more clear - and as a good friend recently pointed out to me - action and motive always align. In other words, we always do wh...

“Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven?” (Job 38:33) This rhetorical question was posed by God to a human. The human’s answer was “I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.” (Job 42:3) In Solomon’s wisdom, there is an admonition about speaking: “let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.” (Ecc 5:2). Questioning is not necessarily a virtue, but it can sometimes be a vice. So what should one do, when s/he has unanswerable questions…questions that only the Almighty could possibly answer? When the events of life don’t seem to follow the presupposed patterns, when change comes rushing in like a flood, when faced with the bold assertion, “you have no control,” how should the potential questioner proceed? Deriving guidance from wise men (Job, Solomon), a tentative answer seems to be: don’t be hasty in your questioning, check your attitude, and if yo...

Odd news this past weekend. An aunt I’ve not seen in twenty years called to tell me my biological father, who I haven’t spoken with in thirteen years, died. I’m not exactly sure when he died, frankly. Perhaps I’ll refrain from actually knowing the date, “Father died today, or yesterday maybe. I can’t remember.” My aunt wanted me to make an appearance in the probate proceedings. Apparently, I’m the only child sired by my father, though it seems he adopted one or two stepchildren, whose mother he married and later divorced. I understood very quickly that my aunt and her mother are not fans of my former stepmother, who I was told actually ran over my father with her car… twice. One of my favorite classes in law school was Wills & Trusts. The common law that developed regarding wills is fascinating, and most of it has been codified to one degree or another in the various states. I remember one case we read actually involved a man who scrawled his dying wishes on a wall just before deat...

The late astronomer Carl Sagan once claimed, "the cosmos is all there is, or was, or ever shall be." This is a pretty good definition of naturalism. With the picture to the left in mind (which was taken from Voyager 1, 1990), Sagan delivered these words in a commencement address in 1996 just prior to his death: The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in t...

It is 1am. I am illuminated to an idea that I have never really considered before. In scripture the metaphor of light is undeniable. And usually, the metaphor points us rightly to the holiness of God - the bright whiteness of his moral righteousness. But there is another dimension to the reality of light that I cannot deny - light is a comfort as well. Let me briefly explain. Having gone to bed at around 9:30p, I am now up per our current routine, awakened from some sort of RIM cycle by the cry of my two month old boy. As I, still half asleep, feed him a bottle of milk in our mostly darkened living room, I notice three sources of light. The first light is unapproachable yet desirable - it comes from the heavens. If you have never seen the stars from 7200 feet above sea level, away from the city-glow, on a clear night, you should. Just over my right shoulder, the big dipper is positioned downward between two small mountain peaks, like an ice cream scoop poised to rake down upon some uns...

Formidable, irascible, incorrigible, and eerily prescient: Ayn Rand. In a recently released biography of every misanthropic, libertarian college student’s favorite philosopher, Jennifer Burns captures both Rand’s undying fervor for her philosophy as well as her personal failings. "Goddess of the Market; Ayn Rand and the American Right" is a must read for both Randophiles and political conservatives who have heard of Rand, but who may not have the time or perseverance to slog through "The Fountainhead" or "Atlas Shrugged." Burns clearly holds admiration for Rand, but is not mired in the sycophancy one often finds with self-identified Objectivists, making "Goddess of the Market" the most even-handed discussion of Rand I’ve ever read. Three areas of Burns’ biography of Rand were especially interesting to me: the discussion of Rand’s early childhood and move to the states; an explication of Rand’s personal life with her husband and paramours; and Ran...

If you're like me, you grew up hearing about five names significant to WWII: Hitler, Mussolini, FDR, Stalin, and a little Dutch Jewish girl named Anne Frank. While nobody reads Mein Kampf anymore (it's virtually unreadable, anyway), and FDR's fireside chats aren't widely, or even narrowly, read, Anne Frank's diary is required reading for school children all over the country, perhaps the world. Before young Anne was taken off to one of the many prisons within that wicked archipelago of concentration camps and gulags that dotted Europe in the 30's and 40's, she was secreted away by a few brave souls, one of whom was Miep Gies (pronounced "Meep Khees"). (Hiding people in WWII always reminds me of a joke about a diminutive Eastern European, the punchline of which is "can you cache a small Czech.") Miep died on Monday of this week, at the ripe old age of 100. The obituary is here . Some tidbits about Ms. Gies: She never read the diary prior t...

I’ve been absent from this space for sometime, and hope you’ll extend forgiveness on the off chance that you log on daily looking for my witty pixels to appear on screen. I’d like to offer a few thoughts on the current healthcare debate, and the bills current matriculating through Congress, possibly toward becoming law. The Senate Bill, as most of you know, is the one that is most likely to become law, and is considered the more “moderate.” I’m not exactly sure what a moderate healthcare bill is; it sounds like it would only provide a moderate amount healthcare, which doesn’t sound like a good selling point. Under that bill you and I will be required by law to purchase health insurance. There are a few exceptions. For instance, if a person is indigent you and I will be required to purchase his health insurance as well. If one is an illegal alien (that is, an undocumented member of a Democratic constituency) you and I will still be required to subsidize emergency room care for him as we...