what do i know?

This week I picked up some dress shirts from the dry cleaners and was reminded why I go so infrequently even though I wear them every single day to work. Picking them up leads to my absolute least favorite chore I ever do: preparing the shirts to be hung back up in my closet. I have to remove the tags from each shirt. Then I have to button the cuff and placket (yes, I had to google this word) on each sleeve, then button all the front buttons and replace the stupid wire hanger with a real hanger. This is not really that big of a deal, but for some reason I HATE DOING IT! This is the reason why I wear my shirts twenty times before I take them to the dry cleaners (unless they get visibly dirty). This chore also prompted my idea for this blog. It doesn't take much reflection to realize that we are all a little weird. We have odd habits, mannerisms, and dispositions at times. I am no exception. In fact I am an exemplar of weirdness. So, I want to take a few minutes to itemize some...

The other day I was reading in Acts 10 and 11 and I started to have a realization about myself and our culture in general. I think it is worth sharing. My point here won't simply be spiritual, so don't let a disinterest in spirituality/religion keep you from reading on. But before I get to my point, here's what happened in this passage: God ordained a meeting between the Apostle Peter (a Christ-following Jew) and Cornelius, a Gentile who had a high level of reverence for the God of Israel. In their meeting, the Holy Spirit is poured out on the believing Gentiles, just as it had been in Judea among proselytized Jews. Upon returning to Jerusalem, the Apostles question Peter in an accusatory manner about his closeness and unity with unclean Gentiles on this journey (physical and moral purity was a key distinguishing cultural characteristic of Jews, as non-Jews were not God's chosen people and were considered unclean). He recounted the story to them, ending ...

Charlottesville In light of recent events in Charlottesville and the spillover effects, I thought I'd offer a few general thoughts. As a brief summary, a collection of various far-Right, white supremacist groups held a permitted rally. They certainly have freedom of speech to have and express hateful and unpopular views. They were also perfectly within their rights to hold the rally. They also held a torch-lit march the night before the rally, shouting white-supremacist and anti-Semitic rally cries. They were met with far-Left, anti-Nazi/fascist counter-protesters, and much violence ensued. It's speculative, but is appears that a desire to provoke controversy  and create a clash was a factor in the march and scheduled rally. It's also speculative, but it also appears that the violence was largely initiated by the far-Leftist groups. Saddest of all, three deaths resulted: one from a white-supremacist ramming his motor vehicle into a crowd of protesters, and two as a resul...

The title is a misnomer that I shamelessly used to draw folks in. My parents are not divorced. They are, however, separated by North Carolina standards. All that is required is for marital partners to simply move into different households with the intention of not moving back in together. As far as a child is concerned, there's no difference. My parents were married for about 13 years, and it's a miracle that it lasted that long. Between parental conflict and the drama that comes with a small house with four (five in the summers while my half-brother stayed with us) young children, peace was not the norm. I don't really know what the breaking point was, but when I was twelve my parents decided to split. My sisters were thirteen and nine, and my brother was ten. My parents did not slowly fall down a slippery slope, and there was no final straw that I have a recollection of (I was a child, so there was much I didn't know). This was something that could have happened...

I just finished a book by Tim Keller about the parable from Luke 15 traditionally found under the subhead The Prodigal Son . The book has provided so much more insight into the parable than I've ever known and has challenged me more than anything I've read in a long time. Since so much of what I'm going to say is from the book, I'll go ahead and post a link to it: The Prodigal God.  *All page number references are to this edition. The Parable of the Two Lost Sons Keller first makes the point that a more accurate title of this parable would be the Parable of the Two Lost Sons as the traditional focus on the younger brother may do injustice to the text (keep in mind that the chapter and verse divisions, as well as the subheads in the Bible are not part of the original writings, so this suggestion does no harm to Keller's high view of the Bible's textual integrity and reliability). He bases this idea primarily on the makeup of Jesus's direct audience ...