The Comfort of Ambiguity

Recently I've talked to more people about religion, God, Jesus and worldviews than I have in a long time. I've been enjoying the conversations very much, but something keeps happening. As the conversation shifts to their views on spiritual things, people start to talk about God in very free and liberal ways. "God is my father in the sky" or "I believe in god, the god of all religions." I then dialogue with them after asking them what they think when the Word of God says of Jesus, "I am the truth, the way and the life" or Jesus said of himself, "If you know me, you know my Father who sent me." We all desire to know God, to go deeper, but God has pre-ordained a way to himself....through Jesus.

My impulse to that is, isn't that quite narrow? Just Jesus? I mean what if you read the Bible, do good works, and just believe in God. Isn't that good enough? If we say yes, if we have taken upon ourselves the assumption of rulemakers. If we say yes, then we have basically said, "This seems good, SURELY God works this way."


When a 14 yr old boy approaches a girl with that classic note which reads, "Do you like me? Check one: Yes or No" he doesn't presume she likes him and throws away the note thinking "SURELY she must like me, because I'm a good guy who likes to play games and am fun" before he lay's a smacker on her lips. He would be a fool! Why? There is a certain way to her heart, abounding in sweet words, full of flowers, all along a path made of 78% Dark Chocolate. All of us men, who think to even start presuming new rules on our own in our pursuit of those wonderful beings God gave us, know it just can't be done (I will concede, there are a few who may enjoy less than traditional means to her heart...alas all analogies break down somewhere). So there is one way to God.

My question still stands, why are so many comfortable with just God, and not Jesus?

In brief I think its because Jesus is so specific!! He came, fulfilled a set of rules, gave new ones, and told people how to live, and how to find God. That's how it feels to unbelievers I think. They say, "How could a gracious god such as mine come down from heaven, and speak judgment upon all who don't beleive, that's harsh! That's not my god!"

So many rabit trails could be had at this juncture, but I want to hone in on one nature of the heart that might be the culprit in giving vent to this sort of attitude. The comfort of ambiguity (or maybe the desire of laziness).

This ambiguity is to describe anything that would otherwise be direct, clear, upfront or potentially offensive. People don't want a god that tells them they are inherently bad, and need something to save them, no they want friends as gods, who will "accept them as they are." Who wants to have a god that whispers in your ear, "you shouldn't be doing that." What we really want is a lawless god. It's his law that gets us, because from the moment we are born we live against it.

The ambiguity plays into it all, when the mind walks to the fringes and says "Maybe God wouldn't mind if I did this, but maybe he might." In the space between obedience and rebellion, there is blissful ambiguity, in which we just don't know for sure, or we have found some peaceful middle ground where accountability does not show its annoying face.

This is right where the devil wants us...arms length away from the reality that can change us forever, but far enough, seemingly, from evils grasps to not make us feel utterly evil. It is the sucess of the evil one to allow us to feel that we have done no wrong, and don't need saving.

Here, our best weapon is cold water! Yes, ice cold water, the kind that causes even the deepest sleeper to rise in a gasp. The cold water of reason that says we do wrong and are in need of Savior.

In this realm of ambiguity, we must be counter-cultural. We have to be that prophetic word that splits flesh and bone, straight to the soul. Jesus is the way, the truth and source of life eternal! This is the message, don't be afraid of it!!

"The power of God and the potency of prayer"

Today was just one of those days. You know what I'm talking about, they just mysteriously happen. Perhaps something to do with alignment of the planets or weather, but you just wake up grumpy, have a hearty breakfast but it does nothing for you. You go see your favorite people, the ones that usually make you smile and laugh, but you are unfilled. You finally have the rest of a day to spend with your loved one, and it just wasn't as fun as you thought it would be. Thoughts of just getting the day done with and over, and try to start new tomorrow morning are frequent. Perhaps the best way to describe it is, funk! I'm just in a funk...not funky. No sir, not feeling funky, just a funk has come over me. Don't try to pretend you don't know what I'm talking about...I think its human to go through this....

...but how you react to this, makes all the difference in the world!!

It would be my guess that others, like me, when they're in this "funk" start asking questions that are not fun, but if you haven't asked them before, are vital to your happiness. Questions like "what will I do today?", or "why did I chose this way of life?", or even "why am I alive, what's my purpose, am I to work a 9-5 job until I die or retire and lose my mind?" These times that we go through are vital, and how we go through them are even more so!

A great counselor, writer, and pastor named D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, once wrote regarding depression "the oxymoronic ability for a believer to be depressed, is their inability to preach to themselves, and their ability to live off their feelings" [paraphrased]. If our whole worldview is based on something as subjective as our feelings, our lives will amount to nothing more than a series of roller-coaster rides, and at that, may even have the ability to fall off our rails. Think about it, what are our feelings based on, or influenced by...things that surround us. Circumstance, health, weather, activities, and other peoples sentiments towards us. We can't control this, as much as we may try to.

I'll be honest!! I want to be happy! I want constant satisfying joy! I want to be known perfectly, I don't want my wife to have to guess as to what's going on with me (though she is VERY good at that...she must know me in some part I guess). I want to be able to shake myself out of every funk I find myself trapped in! When I compare what I can do, what I've done, to where I want to be....I find myself completely lacking in skill to get there. The fact of the matter is, I fail sometimes. So how do I get there. Let me tell you a story:

I went on a solo backpack trip in the Appalachian Mountains once and I forgot my headlamp. I went to the mountains a little nervous knowing there were bears, wolves, and creatures who could easily prey on my tender white flesh if they wanted to, especially being alone, but confident as to where I was going. When it came to evening time, and light was slowly fading, I found myself not too sure where I was, where my campground would be, or if the skies would stay clear for me (I didn't have a tent...I chose to be under the stars to sleep). If I had let my emotions take the best of me, some poor guy would have found me running through the forest and screaming for help like I had just met Saskwatch or something. But I had to preach to myself, coach myself into truth....I had to tell myself "If God is in control of everything right now, if he is not done with his plans for me, if he can shut the mouths of bears and wolves (like he did for Daniel in the lions den), THEN my God will look out for me."

So too today I have found myself altogether hard-pressed to find something with super-natural strength to bring me out of this funk. I found myself praying, praying to the one who always listens, who always knows my state of emotion before I tell him. I found my answer in a facebook post that basically encouraged me with a truth of God, and a caution against a lie from the devil. That's how it is isn't it! No matter how I FEEL, the truth of God stands firm, but the lies of the evil will try shake the foundation of that truth. Right now, as I write this, I am a son of God adopted to His family by His will, I am co-heirs with Christ not in this world but in the world to come as well, I have a Father who has provisioned every good thing for me before I could think of them.

The word says in Psalms "In my presence there is joy, in my right there is pleasure forevermore" I want that!! You know what, I can't find that in a calming cup of tea, a glass of wine, in comedy, in chocolate, in delightful friends, or even in my wife! I must press into my Fathers heart and delight in Him in order to find what I've been looking for all along! The place where joy and relationship with my maker perfectly mingles!!

I want to mention one more thing. There was one more instance when I was in a funk, it was ruining Emily and I's day, she didn't know how to handle me, I didn't know what I myself was going through. Something sudden happened, and the next instant a weight was lifted off my heart. I felt new, and wonderfully suprised! My immediate next thought for some reason was...."somebody prayed for me." I turned to Emily and said, "Emily did you just pray for me?" She calmly looked at me, smiled and nodded. We both then just marveled at how God's Spirit works between us! God impressed Emily to pray for me, and BOOM like that, it was effectual. Ladies, don't forget to pray for your husbands, and husbands likewise your wives. Prayer is probably one of the most effectual disciplines and is probably the one thing we do the least. God bless you all....and good night!

"Are you glaring at me?" DeVille saga, pt.1

I love challenges, and I guess that's why I've set out on this blogging adventure. A while ago, I was doing one of those personal temperament profile test things, and I took the test and found the essay that "explained" my temperaments and attitudes to be fairly accurate. It said, I rise to challenges, that I am not satisfied with the ho-hum of life, and when others may desist, I persist! I guess that may explain the reason why I'm doing this. I love puzzles, and this lady I work with is totally baffling everyone. Before I get any further I must provide some backdrop.

Meet my curious cubicle neighbor, Miss Cruella DeVille (code name for the blog...its therapeutic for me to call her that, c'mon), about 33 years of age, single, African-American, dreads, modestly dressed with nothing extreme and actually wears an abnormal number of full length skirts down to the ankles (I notice because such conservative dress is abnormal in this "exposed" society...and you may be thinking "Wow Luke, no wonder you're having drama, you yourself are staulking her and the clothes in her closet"...I also mention this because I believe this to be significant...not sure how currently). She started working for the Mobile Devices department of the SunTimes Newspaper at Merchandise Mart. Her first day was about a month ago, and she was friendly, saying hi to all who came by her desk, and for the first week we had friendly conversations back and forth...mostly light conversation. Her wit had a delightful jovial spirit at the center with soft sarcasm around the edges. Not offensive, nothing crazy, just witful joking around.

This is where the mystery begins, where Dr. Jekyl under the light of the moon mysteriously changes form and turns into...well its not that hideous of a situation, but its super intriguing. Somewhere right after her first week, she began to be frank and terse, almost to the extent that the DeVille I knew no longer existed, and it was as if night turned to day, as if in fit of rage, she like Jake in "Twilight", began to morph into a giant wolf creature...not really but you get the picture...it was sudden.

Soon, attempts at making small talk brought responses, like "Luke, actually I'm going to get back to work now, if you don't mind" preceded by a long annoyed stare. I can respect a womans desire to make it as successful and work hard, and push through lunches for the sake of productivity. We all make sacrifices sometimes.

So for a about a week I didn't bother her, I let her be. She became increasingly somber, and her interactions with people grew shorter and more frank. But at about week two of her time there, I looked over my cubicle to see if my co-worker Jim was sitting at his desktop, when a stern annoyed voice spoke to me, "Luke are you GAZING at me? Are you looking at me? Do you NEED anything?" As my guess that the look of someone in awe and the look of "caught-with-your-hand-in-the-cookie-jar" are quite similar, she thought she caught me, but really I was like...."whaaaaaaa?" I said, "excuse me?", she seemed pissed at this point. "Do not gaze at me...do you need anything?" Again, I'm like "whaaaaa?" So I say, "No....no I was looking for Jim...over there" as I pointed in his direction. She just lowered her head with a scowl.

I returned to my normal position facing my computer, which is opposite of her desk.

What does a good mannered gentlemen do, who doesn't want to get slapped with false sexual harrassement charges, but wants to honor the common woman in the workplace? "Leave her alone," was the advice I received from many respected woman including my wife (baby I love you, you give the best advice in the world). So I did, much against my "fix-it" tendency I have...I made it may life-goal NOT to make eye contact, and for the last two weeks, I succeeded....only in my own perspective I guess, because today I was caught "glaring" at her, while emptying my loose leaf tea into the trash.

This is where my gears of puzzle solving start to make an annoying screaching sound as my gears are running so fast they're running out of the oil of previous learned experience...this is something entirely new and befuddling!! In fact, I have no gear for this...I'm spinning free, no teeth to catch on the wheel of the next gear. So I'm not even looking at her, but apparently I was "glaring" at her this time. In fact as I was looking at the trash can, she started talking to me, and as I raised my head, I found she was already staring at me. This was our conversation:

DeVille: "Do you need anything? Stop glaring at me Luke!"

Me: "What are you talking about?"

DeVille: "If you want anything, just use my name, don't glare at me."

Me: "Deville, I don't want anything....I wasn't glaring at you I was emptying my tea....."

DeVille: "JUST....don't glare at me....use my name. That's all I ask."

Me: "I wasn't glaring at you, I was....*insert sigh*....this in your head DeVille, its all in your head"

DeVille: "Whatever, don't glare at me, that's all I ask."

Me: "This is a game in your head DeVille, I went out of my way to NOT look at you for the past two weeks DeVille....this is one big game all in your head."

DeVille: "Don't stare at me."

Then....it was over. I turned back to my seat, trembling with adrenaline through my body! I successfully don't know what to do. She's crazy!!

The current fix on the situation is to put a bulletin board between our cubicles, so she can't see me "glaring" at her, while I face the opposite direction and work on my computer. All this is not so en-angering anymore, just super duper uber perplexing! I'm working with someone as mysterious as mystery itself on a foggy evening in London, and its causing me to want to figure her out.

And now on a serious note:

I've been praying for her, I don't know if she's going through something with her family, a death, or is just emotionally despondent right now, who knows but my Father in heaven.

I'll keep writing as long as interesting things keep happening! This is so fun....and therapeutic!

The not so pharisaical scribe

Lately I've considered it a goal to read through the gospel of Mark. If there is a core teaching, a core system, or a heart to the writing that I want to glean from it, its the ways, teaching, and heart of Christ I want to glean. I want the thought of Christ to jump at me from the pages. Like one of the great evangelists and speakers of our day said, Ann Graham-Lotz, "Just give me Jesus." It's true...out of all the characters in the Bible I could study, I want to study the life and teachings of the very man who in this instant is performing his perfect priestly service to me, and has bestowed on me an inheritance greater than I could ever conceive!! I want to know who this is!!
I say this, because I think I found someone in the word someone who might have experienced an emotion much akin to this. He was a scribe, probably one of the scribes in the synagogue who listened more to Jesus' teachings with his heart than his heady counterparts, pharisees and sadducees. Mark says this scribe came to Jesus because he heard how successfully Jesus was teaching to the people there. He was probably intrigued, and maybe experienced how Jesus' words on some matters spoke to his heart. This man was still a scribe, and probably a bit legalistic like many teachers were, obsessing over the law, forgetting altogether the maker of the law in the first place. But like many who have broken free from the chains of legalism into the freedom of Christ, he too was about to begin his life away from the law. So in his legalistic tendencies he approached Christ about a command, and asked what Jesus thought was the most important command. Jesus response was probably so satisfying to him. He chimed back and repeated what Jesus had said to him, affirming it to his own life. "You are right Teacher." What was this command that Jesus gave him. It was the only command that could wean a man off the law itself. It was the greatest verb a man could integrate into his life. The greatest thing he could do to others. Like all commands that revolve around an action, indicated by a verb, Jesus gave him one word....Love! In two forms he gave him this word....1) Love God, 2) Love others.
As the greatest command ever given, this may be the one thing that is hardest for us to carry out. It requires that we look beyond ourselves, it says "be God to that person and love him". In our self-centered society, this is probably top on our list of things that we should entreat prayer in aid for this, and is probably one of the things we pray about least. "Father, even now....teach me to love....to love beyond myself...to love in faith...to love in ways I do not know...that I may be Christ to all who don't know you."

My question is Why does Christ seemo desire his message not be spread, when he says, "make sure you tell no one" or "tell no one of what you have seen here." I'm going to open it up to whomever wants to comment. I know I once I learned the answer, but I forget, and I wanted to hear what you're reactions were. (as a sidenote, I'm about done compiling my thoughts on the word "bless" [ba-rak] as used in the OT) Here are the passages to consider this over.
Mark 7:36
Mark 8:26, 8:30
Mark 9:9
I know there are more, but this is just a sample. So, what do you think?

Worthy of all the energy in the World

Tonight is one of the those nights that I knew what I was going to write all day, since this morning when I read the daily devotional by A W Tozer. I'll post it, and share my thoughts afterward. As a backdrop, every month has a theme, and this month is preaching.

Since I can't find a way to copy and paste into this Blog, I'll sum up his devotional in this statement he makes. "The freshest thought to visit the mind, should be the thought of God". He makes the point that probably one of the absolutes of the event of preaching is the ability to capture the attention of the audience, for their long-term benefit. If a preacher comes up, does not speak well, is mundane, says things which are not very relatable, the intended long-term effect of the authorial intent the preacher had, will not be there.

If you can listen to John Piper's shpeal on preaching, when he talked about George Whitefield. Absolutely amazing! The gist of George Whitfield was, if actors so act to convince you of something fake, how much should we use tools of communication to convince others of what is real. Think about it! What is more deserving of passion, of intellectual input, of rhetoric, of presentation and speaking skills, but the word of God.

It's so interesting! I've told my wife this so many times. "If consumerism were a monster, advertising and marketing would be its arms and legs." Billions and billions of dollars are spent each year......on trying convince you need something you really don't. Buy this new contraption, it will REVOLUTIONIZE your life....buy this doo-hicky for your couch, it will improve your digestive system.....it's all craziness! Advertising is a multi-billion dollar business!

What if we presented the gospel, like these companies try to convince consumers on buying things they don't really need! Just putting it out there....what if? What if God's people got it together, and made campaigns! Now, I know churches like Mars Hill, and Willow Creek, and Harvest Bible Chapel, and Bethlehem Baptist Church do make an effort in this arena. But just what if we pushed the envelope even more. I am not even sure what that would look like to be honest. It's been on my heart, and I'm not sure where it will go from here. Perhaps other peoples hearts will be stirred too. What do you think? Am I crazy? Are city-wide, or nation-wide campaigns feasible? Is the gospel worthy? Is God's glory that worthy to be magnified in people's hearts turning to Him as an outcome of these campaigns?

I'm trying to think of recent history of things of this magnitude. Billy Graham crusades....I know Charles Spurgeon and Dwight L Moody spoke to THOUSANDS in their day.

I'm going to leave it at that for right now....what do you think? What are you thinking?

What's wrong with bosses?

As usual, my writings are fueled from personal experiences throughout the day. Today I had a little frustration with my director, but it slowly sizzled away after I realized something. I'll share that in a bit.

First, what's with all the guff we give our piers? It's so easy to talk down about them, to criticize, and really not respect those over us. Why? You may answer, "were rebellious, we were born to do that" or "they just really aren't good supervisors" or even "they deserve it, mine treats me like crap!" So yeah, everyone is a critic. It's easier to criticize and find something wrong than it is to admonish, and encourage somebody (while I'm on the topic, compliment somebody who is in the room with you right now). I would argue there might be something underlying our views of supervisors and bosses. Let me ask you another question...what is it about leaders that we demand so much from them? Why all of a sudden when someone increases in leadership, we correspondingly increase our expectations for them. I have no answer except this suggestion. We are biologically wired to expect much from leaders! They're leaders! They have responsibilities over others which requires that they have better skills than us, better assets, better minds..... I would further assert that we are hard-wired to behold "perfect" leadership. We desire it...we don't like it when our leaders fail us, or even worse when they're failures affect us. We get a pay cut, we get the grief, or we get more responsibilities and you know what happens....the amount of gossipping that goes on behind that boss's back increases....and its not good things were saying. We sub-consciously expect perfection.

I realized this as I got frustrated. I sat and I thought (as I often do at work in a rather unproductful manner) "Well maybe this guy has never been officially mentored in his position...maybe he really doesn't know what's going on and so he has this austere cold front that makes me feel like I'm the fool and insulates him in being a boss." My expectations for him were automatically very high.

I'm realizing more and more I'm alive, there is only one person in this universe that can quench my desires for perfection, for betterness, for an improved life-style....Jesus Christ. "Oh how cliche Luke..." Oh I mean it with all my heart!! Take for example my lens for viewing reality, mainly the Bible. I take the Bible to be infallibly true, and I trust it. If what it says is true, that God exists, He created the earth, He created it to be sufficient for us, but for His Glory made this earth temporal, and told me that everything in this world has, is but an echo of things to come, including leadership (and I understand if you don't share my worldview, this won't make a bit of sense). So many things will come to its purposed climax, in the world to come after Jesus comes, or I die (which ever comes first). Joy will be fulfilled in heaven (by things to come, I meant this, heaven), the task of work God gave to Adam will be fulfilled in heaven, ultimate love will be fulfilled (in part) by the receiving of the gift of heaven to all who believe in Jesus, and even leadership itself will be fulfilled in heaven when Jesus Christ is named King over the entire earth, and rules in perfection! You see we are actually hard-wired to be ruled over....not in tyranny, not in wrath, or in injustice....but with a ruler who is perfect! Who loves perfectly! Who gives perfectly! Who will govern our lives perfectly!

So remember this....when your boss is giving you a hard time, or you are giving him/her a hard time, and you get frustrated......your boss is an echo of things to come, and is made to remind you of the hierarchy that God hard-wired in you, that will only find its satisfaction in Jesus Christ!

That was a lot I know....leave comments for questions...I'll happily answer them!

PS - My wife added an interesting perspective. She basically added a synomym for the way I was using the term "hard-wired" in terms of desiring perfection. That synonym in Bible-speak is the phrase "image of God". The Bible says we are created in the image of God, and those who don't believe in Christ Jesus simply don't realize that they were created after the image of God (which is why its not that outlandish when Jesus claimed to be God when he walked this earth). We who know this, accept it and embrace it....we pursue being the image of God, the spiritual walk.

The Thrilling Thirty

Today's workout was amazing! I love a great workout, that just works well, keeps my heart rate up, and keeps me pumped! So today I'm going to call the circuit I created, the "Thrilling Thirty", and share it with ya'll. Its a circuit that you repeat three times, 10 minutes each circuit, and it takes about 30 minutes.....yeah you get it.

1. Bench Press

2. Pull-ups

3. Clean-and-press

4. Jumpe rope

The range here was a really good upper chest, and tricep circuit. The goal for me personally, is to complete the Men's Health 300 workout circuit!! Its killer! But the numbers I'm following right now, that will hopefully lead me into a one successful circuit of the 300, are:

1. Bench Press (135 lbs. as 2 sets of 5 reps each set)

2. Pull-ups (2 sets of 3....I know I know, its the body weight, its gotta go)

3. Clean-and-press (35 lbs. as 2 sets of 7 reps each set, each arm)

4. Jump rope (at least 2-3 minutes 70-80% exhertion)

I'm find circuits are a nice and fast way to get a complete intense workout. It's been shown that circuits burn fat like crazy while toning muscles at the same time. They're deceiving...you could take your time with them and get through them no problem, but circuits are meant to be done fast, in high intensity, and with short breaks (I was trying to keep my breaks under 45 sec.'s to a minute).

This summer I'm going for big, but for right now I've got some winter poundage I gotta burn! Try circuits, maybe this one, you might get addicted.

How do you know how you know?

First, off I'm not trying to be deep and profound. Not philosophical, but rather...provocative! It all started when I was talking with a co-worker the other day.

It was a Friday, everyone was in a chipper conversational mood and we got to talking about lunch. "No, I'm going to have to stay at my desk today for lunch" I said reluctantly. I had to, because I was leading our young adults ministry that night and I had to brush up on what we were going to talk about. They were curious what I was going to do that night. "I'll be leading a Bible study tonight." One of the ladies burst out exhuberantly, "Oh brother, religion is great for you! It makes people better..." and she just went on about how good "religion". Inside I cringed....I don't like the word "religion" as it is misguiding to what I want communicate about the Bible. My co-worker just went on and on about how great religion is. We got to talking about marriage (I was the only married guy in the group) and about how religion helps safeguards against marital affairs. I chimed in at that point "Well it really helps your marriage when you realize why God instituted marriage in the first place!" And my co-workers response just baffled me. She said with wide-eyed naive agreement, "Yeah I totally know what you mean." She had just gotten done talking about how in her marriage she sees happening in the future, she just wants to be happy, as she should be. My point was going to be "God instituted marriage not for happiness, but for holiness."

This just got me to thinking and remembering my teachings on epistemology. Epistemology is the basic study of knowledge...how you know what you know. I just want to hone here on the verb, "to know". The way she used that verb is generally the way we use it as Westerners. Well you may say, what do you mean? In the sense between the way Westerners (USA, Europe, etc) use the verb to know versus the way Easterners (Asia, Indonesian Ocean, etc) use that verb. An anthropologst and ethnographer (I think, don't quote me on that one) wrote this in his book "The East and the West". "Western thinking proceeds from particulars to general concepts while remembering that abstractions exist only in the mind of the thinker. It aims at imposing man's will on nature and society." Basically a very "scientific, intellectualistic, aggressive" way of approaching knowledge. Isn't that true? Us Westerners are usually the kings of science, masters of systematizing just about anything. Now consider his viewpoint on Eastern thinking. "Eastern thinking...is concerned with meditative introspection and contemplation rather than logic and induction from observed phenomena. The Oriental wants to feel that he has taken hold of the inner significance of the object of contemplation. Thought is more a form of pleasure than a prelude to action....as a result, knowledge of the natural world has significantly lagged behind that of the West..." (Sidney Lewis Gulick, "The East and The West", P. 128)

We in the West could feel like we stand high over our Eastern brothers, having gone through the Englightenment. I would argue that since we have gone through Englightment we may be missing something. I think the tendency of a scientific, first-glance, survey type of approach to thinking and new topics, may be keeping us going mile deep into ideas, and knowledge in general.

In the case of my co-worker, when I mentioned "It helps why God institutionalized marriaged", and she replied with a "I totally know your talking about", indicates to me that she has adopted this Western way of surveying what was just said, search our mental dictionary to see if merely it's there, and we find a faint checkmark of acquaintence and go "Yup, I know about that" when in fact what we mean, is "Yup I'm familiar with that". It's interesting! What keeps us from saying, "Well, what do you mean by that?" My guess is pride! The pride that says "Not sure what they're talking about...don't want to make it look like I don't know what they're talking about...because afterall I'm a ." Or it could be that we just want to be "in" on the conversation, and by admitting not knowing something, we'll feel "out" of the conversation, and those in it, will look condemingly on us. I don't know. All I know, is that a vulnerable and humble spirit is the tool in increasing in wisdom in knowledge.

If there is anything you get out of this, it is a new perspective on how you might personally approach new concepts, and new ideas. My wish would be that more people would go a mile deep in a few things, than go hardly deep at all in a wide range of things.

Alma mater

History is so delicious! Isn't it? Maybe its just me. We learn so much from it. Today I found something interesting connected with this phrase, "alma mater".

Let me first start by noting with amazement how much we derived from those darn Romans. Culture, language, law, societal system, etc. Alma mater is one of those phrases that date clear past the death of Christ and finds its landing in early Roman mythological speak. "Nourishing mother" is the direct translation, and was first used as a title for goddesses. From there early Christians who were of Catholic faith started using alma mater to describe the Virgin Mary. Then a more traditional use of the term as we know it began in a university in Italy. The University of Bologna, which is the oldest known university in the world, had this phrase as its motto. It is thought from this use of the phrase we get our familiarized usage of this term, alma mater studorum, which translates to "nourishing mother of studies".

Another point of interest in the world of education happened around the 1600's through 1700's. This was an age of reviving among Christians in which laymen, pastors and scholars challenged views of God and the Church. They compared what the scriptures taught against what had been traditionally taught by the Pope and his Catholic Church, and there continued a division that was started by other men like Martin Luther and John Calvin. What Puritans realized was that there was an extreme lack of men to lead churches, or just groups of people with educated knowledge of the scriptures. Out of the Puritan movement came a resurgence of education and scholarship. Schools were started to educate people, to prepare them for the ministry to be pastors, scholars, or whatever the need was. From this was birthed schools like Oxford, Yale, and Cambridge. Much of the great ivy-league schools we know of today, were actually instituted to accomodate a growing need for pastors. Interesting, right?