Mathetes

I woke up this morning from another rough night's sleep.  Nasal congestion, a headache, foggy brain, scratchy throat.  Allergies, again, it seems, and probably a little sleep apnea. It's been pretty bad lately, despite my attempts to find the right combination of medications and to drop a few pounds and get in shape to aid my night time respiration.  As I'm writing this, on mornings like this... I don't feel invincible like I once did.  I feel like a slow foretaste of death.  As my dad says, "Getting old sucks!"  And that's just it... I'm not old.  I'm barely to my mid-forties.  I'm relatively healthy.  But the difference between how I feel today and how I felt just a few short years ago is palpable.   As I'm reading through David Gibson's book, Living Life Backwards, I've been thinking about death a lot, which probably sounds morbid at first blush.  However, I appreciate how Gibson walks us through the words of the Preacher in...

These are crazy times. What I am struck by, and have been struck by over the past number of years, is how incorrigibly religious we are. I'm not talking about what church we belong to or what organized faith we claim to ascribe to. I'm talking about how we turn literally anything into a "religion" in the worst sense of the word. I see it happen today with politics and with just about any social issue or cause that is out there. What does it mean to "religionize" something? It means at least these three things: 1. We turn that thing into the way we mentally divide the world into good and bad, part of the solution of part of what is wrong in the world. 2. That thing is viewed as at least part of the solution for fixing the world. ("if we would all just... then everything would be better") 3. That thing becomes part of our sense of righteousness and identity. We're on the "good" side, and those other people aren't. We're...

I remember kneeling down closer to make out the Latin inscription on the grave stone, as we all walked about the Charter St. Cemetery in Salem. This particular stone belonged to Christian Hunter (died March 18, 1676), the first wife of Captain Richard More, the only one of the Mayflower Pilgrims to take up residence in and be buried in Salem, MA. The words etched just below the primitively macabre winged-skull read, "HODIE MIHI, CRAS TIBI". My Latin is a little rusty, so thanks to Google I was able to translate into the sobering English phrase: "Today me, tomorrow you." It's one of those things that stops you in your tracks and cuts through all the layers of "stuff" that constantly occupies our minds and hearts. It makes me think of what the writer of Ecclesiastes said (Ecc 7:2): It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone; the living should take this to heart. As on...