Christopher's Meanderings

In a few hours we will be officially starting the process of travel to see family for Thanksgiving. As a kid, I never completely got why the holiday was so important to my parents. Now, I start to see it more as a time to be with family without pretense or a bunch of other distractions. One thing is for sure, time just keeps going by faster than I feel like I can keep track of it. So, I wanted to take a chance to think about what it means to be thankful. I know this may be trite because so many people are tackling the topic of thankfulness in one way or another right now, but I think it still bears reflection. At least for me, this an area I can still improve. Thankfulness by its nature means we realize the importance of what we have in some sense. It is a reflection which shows gratitude toward someone or something for what is possessed. The thing possessed can be time with family, food, a job, or any other number of things. But what does it mean to express gratitude? Is merel...

No one would argue that we don't live in a charged political environment in the United States. It seems like every week there is a new headline further highlighting the divides in this country. I am tired. Surely, I am not the only one. It seems like we are often tired as a country. Maybe I am just getting older and don't have the energy or enthusiasm I had ten years ago. There are so many different things we could focus on, but what drew me to finally write on this blog again is the difference between following Christ and following an ethical system. Moralistic therapeutic deism is a term from the book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers  by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton. In general, the teenagers who believed in this sort of worldview didn't hold to any particular set of beliefs from a distinctive faith.  Instead they believed in a god who is separate from the world and can aid them in a psychological sense. Additiona...

One of my earliest memories with my dad alone is him teaching me to play chess. I'm pretty sure it was somewhere before kindergarten since it was in Ohio shortly after we moved. I probably wasn't very good at that time, and I'm still not great at the game, but I will almost always say yes to a game or two. Board games* hold a special place in my life for several reasons. My family played them as I grew up, I have many holiday memories with my cousins playing games, and during college I started playing games with friends again. Funnily enough, it was those years in which I didn't have time for games that I struggled the most in my relationships with God and other people. When playing a game, we are forced to spend time with another person. We are also forced to consider actions with consequences. Usually, both of these prompts force us, at least momentarily, out of our normal routine. The balance between routine and change produces some of the best fruit in my own ...

For a long time, I have struggled internally with what people think about me.  It's been a nagging question, and I finally realized how arrogant it was about a year and a half ago.  Someone said something along the lines of, "You don't really think they are that concerned with you with all the stuff they've got going on do you?" The question stung a little, but later I realized how out of line I was with my thinking. Since then, I've been working on this concept called Innocuous Intent. Innocuous Intent means that I don't ascribe meaning to someone's action, thoughts, or words that aren't there.  Instead of assuming the worst, or even the best, I try to assume nothing.  In other words, when I encounter people, I take them at the truth value they present to me. This has relieved a ton of stress for me.  No longer am I guessing about what is or isn't behind someone's actions.  No longer do I have to worry, "Are they just pretending...

Nancy Ellen Abrams' latest book provides insight on how a naturalist and life-long skeptic could make spiritual sense out of world which she believes is necessarily closed to any supernatural entity. From the start, assumptions are made about the character of the universe.  In the introduction, she makes two points which dominated the book: 1. "All the old views of God are demonstrably inadequate to our times (xxx)." 2. God can only be real if it is found within the natural explanations available in the universe (xxviii). I found the book to be filled with similar assumptions that took for granted a naturalist view of the universe. For example, the Abram's assumes God could never communicate faster than the speed of light and could therefore never know everything. Why? Because she knows of no physical and scientific explanation of how this could be possible.  So, from the beginning everything is assumed, which for me makes a rather droll reading. Where does h...

Life is always full of unexpected challenges and opportunities.  During the past couple of years, I have been surprised over and over again as I take time to review, contemplate, and assess my experiences.  The surprises usually come when I take a look at the times which I thought of as unproductive or even counterproductive. One of the things that I have consistently noted is how I have become a much more detailed oriented person than I used to be as an early twenty something.  It is not that I am some master of organization now- that will probably never happen.  Instead, I am very aware of my own faults and I'm o.k. with them.  Being o.k. with my faults doesn't mean that I encourage bad behaviors; it just means that I am aware of them and I know how to deal with them much better. For example, I recently realized I was not taking an accurate view of myself and the way I spent my time.  There were times when I was far too optimistic and rosy, and there ...

I love it when a good conversation starts. You can tell when it happens, each party engages the other with animation and without animosity.  Passion meets intellect while a back and forth ensues. This book is a great way to start one of those conversations.*  While reading, I found myself having one of those conversations internally with the authors of the book. The authors come from a very different perspective than my own, and this would not typically be a book I would just pick up and read.  However, by forcing myself to consider their perspective through the discursive nature of their book, I have been able to expand my own response to the issues therein.  Considering Hate  presents a counter-cultural narrative on how to combat violence and hate within America.  Although most people view violent acts as atypical aberrant acts, the authors make the case that violent acts are more typically the expected outworking of a hate filled society. ...