Churches Aren’t Radio Stations
In Herman Melville’s classic work Moby Dick, the main character Ishmael tells of the last chapel service he attended before setting out on a whaling vessel. He details the odd pulpit used in the small chapel, which resembled a large ship’s bow. To further the nautical impression, the high pulpit could only be reached by use of a velvet rope ladder akin to the rope ladders used to reach a ship’s masts. Ishmael eventually concludes,...
Life With God
Annie Dillard is unconventional, intriguing, and all-in-all enchanting. In her essay “An Expedition to the Pole” found in Teaching a Stone to Talk she subtly likens a deepening relationship with God to an expedition to the North Pole. In this quote she quite rightly observes that God does not demand all of us unless, of course, we want to be close to Him. God does not demand that we give up our personal dignity, that we throw in our...
Was it for crimes that I have Donne, He groaned upon the tree?
How great was my sin before, how tightly I find it clinging now, and how I look to that day when I shall be glorified and called by a unique name…Lord haste the day! “A Hymn to God the Father” [thought to have been written in 1623] I. Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun, Which was my sin, though it were done before? Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run, And do run still: though still I do deplore? When thou hast done,...
Better a Broken Neck than a Stiff Neck
This passage from the first book of John Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost, tells of the imagined experience of that place of eternal damnation and the absolute refusal of Satan even in this condition to bend his will to God’s. It encourages me always be on guard for the stiffening of the neck that the prophets decried so heartily. At once as far as Angel’s ken he views The dismal Situation waste and wild, A Dungeon horrible, on all...
C. S. Lewis on Curricula
In this quote Lewis clearly shows the importance of every educational decision, especially those concerning curricula. When writing a text book ethics, theology, and politics inevitably become wrapped up in the instruction. “Their words are that we ‘appear to be saying something very important’ when in reality we are ‘only saying something about our own feelings.’ No schoolboy will be able to resist the suggestion brought to bear upon...
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