Yet I Still Dare to Hope: When Hope is a Virtue.
So what virtues do you aspire towards? If you want a conversation to take a turn to the serious, it’s a good question to ask. Some people will answer promptly – perhaps citing some of the more commonly listed virtues – courage, justice and integrity. Others might be more exotic in their choice. Perhaps they will leave you perplexed because they selected procrastination, doubt and detachment. Yet others will be rendered speechless. That’s not to say they don’t have any virtues, but it probably means they haven’t spent much time thinking about them. In a recent podcast on Stirrers...
Read MorePraying for the Peace and Prosperity of our City of Exile: Jeremiah 29:7 and the Political Landscape
It’s been a big week in politics – and I don’t even live in the US! As is usual with elections, there are winners and losers – those who are ecstatic and those who are devastated. In the middle are those who are essentially disinterested, but this is probably a smaller group than is usually the case. I could pontificate at great length about what the US Presidential election says to us and about the role that Christian faith plays in elections – but I don’t have an appetite for that right now. Instead I’d like to take a journey back to some...
Read MoreMissing You: Gaps that aren’t Filled when People Leave…
I came across a beautiful poem by Irish poet Dennis O’Driscoll entitled simply, Missing God. It’s about the societal drift away from God and all the things we lose in that journey. One verse reflects on how different civil marriage ceremonies feel as they avoid words like “everlasting” and “divine”: Miss Him during the civil weddingwhen, at the blossomy altarof the registrar’s desk, we wait in vainto be fed a line containing wordslike “everlasting” and “divine”. If society misses the signs of the Divine it once paid close attention to, it’s also true...
Read MoreOn earning the right to complain…
Much of life is paradoxical. Have you noticed that those with the most to complain about usually don’t, while those whose lot has fallen on pleasant paths often whinge endlessly. I don’t know why, but perhaps those for whom things routinely go right are so accustomed to this fortunate state that they instantly react when something is a little wrong. By contrast, those who regularly struggle are more likely to shrug off a new difficulty with a “well that hardly compares with some of the difficulties I’ve gone through. So let’s just move along.” Rosemary and I saw it very clearly on our...
Read MoreBecause Genius is often just Persistence in Disguise…
I have a PhD. For those who like detail, I earned it for my research into the theological method of Stanley J Grenz and just as he worked to revision evangelical theology, my thesis attempts to revision some of his work. But this post is not about that – did I hear a collective sigh of relief? But it does have a point – a simple one. People have often said to me, “Gosh, you have a PhD. Are you are genius? You must be. That’s so hard to do.” My reply is simple: “Absolutely not. But I am more persistent than most people. And often what people think is genius...
Read More