Things you need to know…. or not

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The morning routine in our friary is that half the house are early risers and the other half…. not so much. One of the early rising friars retrieves the newspaper from the front lawn and reads while having breakfast. Later after morning prayer, the other friars will read the paper during their morning meal. Me? Maybe I glance at the paper. Today was one of those days. In the Tuesday “Health and Science” section was the following headline: “Nose picking is even grosser than you feared.” To read or not to read, that is the question. Will this be something we need to know…. or not? Continue reading →

Humility

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This coming Sunday is the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time.  As promised, some thoughts on the word “humility.”  The word comes into our language from the Middle English, via Anglo-French, from Latin humilis low, humble, from “humus” the word for earth. Webster’s offers this as a definition

  1. not proud or haughty: not arrogant or assertive
  2. reflecting, expressing, or offered in a spirit of deference or submission
  3. ranking low in a hierarchy or scale: insignificant, unpretentious –or  : not costly or luxurious

Does this capture the biblical sense of “humility?”

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Locating our gospel

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This coming Sunday is the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time in Lectionary Cycle C. We are reading from the Gospel of Luke as we have since Pentecost. These readings are part of the journey to Jerusalem during which the principle theme of discipleship is addressed. Jesus continues to teach about the nature of discipleship (see, judge, and act), the urgency of the decision to become a faithful and prudent disciple, and that our decisions and actions have consequences in terms of the kingdom of heaven. Continue reading →

Apollo 11 and the Temple

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I vividly remember where I was on July 20, 1969 when humanity reached and landed on the moon. Amazing does not do justice to the feeling of that moment. We had just arrived at the front door of the universe. What did it all mean? Some 53 years later, we have perspective. The writer Adam Roberts wonders if it was a profane moment in our history and our world when we took on a more universal view.  Continue reading →

Are you WEIRD?

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The Merriam Webster dictionary defines the adjective “weird” as “of strange or extraordinary character : odd, fantastic.”  Joseph Henrich, an anthropologist at Harvard, has coined the term WEIRD to describe societal differences between the West and other global regions. The acronym stands for “Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic.” Tufts University philosophy professor Daniel Dennett described Henrich’s concept as follows: Continue reading →

A final reflection

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This coming weekend celebrates the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time during Lectionary Cycle C. Today we consider a reflection from the Scripture scholar Alan Culpepper, who, at the end of his commentary [277-78], provides an interesting story from Franz Kafka:

His parable “Before the Law” is the story of a man from the country who seeks admission to the Law. When the doorkeeper tells him he may not enter, he looks through the open door, but the doorkeeper warns him that he is just the first of a series of doorkeepers, each one more terrible than the one before. So the man waits for the doorkeeper’s permission to enter. For days and then years, the man talks with the doorkeeper, answers his questions, and attempts to bribe him, but with no success. The doorkeeper takes the man’s bribes, saying he is only doing so in order that the man will not think he has neglected anything. As the man lies dying, he sees a radiance streaming from the gateway to the Law. Thinking of one question he has not asked, he beckons the doorkeeper and asks him why in all those years no one else has come to that gate. The doorkeeper responds: “No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. Now I am going to shut it.”

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Making your mom proud

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What ever happened to a shared sense of manners? Possibly such a question is just the first indication that I am growing really old, as in, ‘What’s wrong with these young people” kind of old. “I remember when….” All possibly true, but I do remember when snark, outrage, and the rest were a poor reflection on your upbringing. Maybe the internet needs a Artificial Intelligence Mom to scold and dispense “time outs” to miscreant behaviors. Continue reading →

Assumptions about membership in the Kingdom

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This coming weekend celebrates the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time during Lectionary Cycle C. In yesterday’s post we looked at some widely held views about how many would be saved – both in 1st century Judaism and in our modern times.

Jesus envisages some of those rejected as pleading that they had known the Lord (v.26). They ate and drank where he was; he taught where they were. They cannot claim that they ever entered into a compassionate understanding of what he was teaching. There was no acceptance, no response; their response was insincere, if at all. It is a sad case that, in every age, there are people under the illusion that they were following Jesus.  While they claim that they ate and drank with him, they fail to understand they had no intimate fellowship; they heard his teaching but did not accept it as the word of God to be put into practice (8:21). Continue reading →

Alexa, AI, and the One

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While I like technology, I don’t think I am too much of a gadget person. I am rarely-to-never an early adopter and will acquire gadgets when I think they serve a functional purpose I might value. The one exception was Amazon Echo. They promoted it at about 25% of the first generation Echoe and I thought why not, buying the device before it was generally available.. The year was 2014. As with most things technological, things change and advance. Continue reading →