Hopeful Thinking

Dipping sauce is the secret to longevity. It’s true! Condiments of all kinds are really where it’s at. They’re like the holy spirit of all food. The sacred catalyst which binds them. Makes it tasty. Brings out the richness. The fullness of the experience. The variety. I prefer a selection with my burger and fries. Of course one can overdo it. My mother used to say to me, “Would you like some ketchup with your ketchup?” And it was a rare shirt in my closet that went without a mustard stain until I was in my twenties. My father was stationed in Okinawa, Japan for a while when he was in the Air Force. Most of his father-to-son stories about the past were set there. I feel sometimes as if I’d been there once myself. I sense a connection to it in a way that makes me confident I’ll one day go. They really know how to live life there. In fact, they have the oldest life expectancy in the world. A record in slight decline only recently due to Westernization. The Okinawan diet does not...

Gathering Words I’d like you to find your heartbeat. Find it through your pulse on your neck or your wrist, find it by placing your hand on your chest. Recognize that your heart is a gong which rings throughout the universe. Think of this as we proceed through our time together. Food for Thought: The Purpose of Hymns I’d like to ask you a question: What is the purpose of singing in church? It appears to be pretty important since we do it three times in an hour. Why? Have you ever wondered? It’s okay if you haven’t. Wonder now. Why do we sing together? What purpose does it serve? And why do we sing mostly old hymns instead of mostly new ones? In 2013, a university in Sweden did a study that helps answer a few of these questions. They found, without exception, that when a group of people sing in unison two things happen. One, their heart rates immediately slow down. This is due to the physical act of singing itself. It requires a rhythmic deep breathing with slow exhalations....

    While I am decidedly not a fan of horror films, I do have a few exceptions. Wes Craven’s 1984 film A Nightmare on Elm Street is one of them. Added to that are a few ghost stories here and there when they have particularly good story lines. But most prominently on the list sits William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist.  I remember one line from the film in particular. “Especially important is the warning to avoid conversations with the demon.” The experienced exorcist, Father Merrin, played by Max von Sydow, warns the film’s protagonist not to engage the beast. No good will ever come of it. The devil lies and will ensnare you with it.     It wasn’t a personal belief in the existence of a devil which made me notice this line in particular, for I do not. Instinctively I felt that there was more to this thought than just a caution for religious exorcists. It’s particularly good advice in the broader sense.. To my way of thinking, ...

   It may be hard to imagine what the future holds for us. The world seems more frightening than ever. Even I, who always looks for the shiny side, have flinched from my perch of optimism a few times. I think about what may become of a divided people. I wonder just how divided we have to get before we wake up.      But whenever I panic a little about the state of the world today, a thought pops into my head. It’s not deliberate. But nearly every time I find myself wincing at the thought of the sheer indecency of this age I suddenly think: We won’t wish it hadn’t happened.      The feeling which accompanies the thought is a strange one. It’s lightness. For a split-second, I feel lighter. It’s not a feeling about peace, or love, or even good or bad. Just lightness. Like the earth’s gravity forgot I was there for a moment and then grabbed me again almost before I missed it.      What does it tak...

We have a dubious relationship with the past. To be frank, we never actually know if history as we understand it is true or not. Because it’s always the victor, not the defeated, who writes the history. Statistically, it would appear that  no recorded history is ever completely accurate. Even our memories are fully unreliable. Science has now shown that we don’t actually remember anything about an event itself. What we remember―what our brains actually record―is our remembering. I can clap my hands twice right now and that is a fact. The first time I recall it, it is a recollection of that actual event. The sound of clapping my hands twice. But once I recall that memory a second time, according to the wiring in our brains, I’m no longer recalling the actual event itself. I’m technically recalling my last remembering of the memory of the event. My brain does not retain the original. It retains the picture I continually re-paint for myself about the event each time I ...

It was recently pointed out to me that I think like a humanist. It’s an opinion to be considered, but not quite true in the way it was meant. Humanism is a belief system which places its focus on humanity and reason rather than the divine. Humanists also tend to emphasize the goodness in humanity and its potential. Of maintaining faith in the latter I am most definitely guilty. To a degree, I am guilty of the former as well. But not of the implications in the word, nor why it was used to describe me. Humanism is presented by its critics as being in opposition to a belief in God, when in actuality it more often simply chooses not to comment on It. The criticism is that too much time is spent looking down here rather than up there. To traditional Christians specifically, it also implies a denial of Christ’s divinity. But I see no reason to deny such a thing. I also do not have the ability to affirm it. Yet I take it at Christ’s implication that we are all made of the same stuff as h...