Words of Wisdom

James Houston, in The Transforming Friendship: A Guide to Prayer:

"The Desert Fathers (a protest movement in the early church) spoke of busyness as 'moral laziness'... Busyness acts to repress our inner fears and perpetual anxieties, as we scramble to achieve an enviable image to display to others. We become 'outward' people, obsessed with how we appear, rather than 'inward' people, reflecting on the meaning of our lives."

This reminds me of a comment made by Michael D. O'Brien:

"There are burdens, even heavy burdens, that ease the weight of a man's life. And there are burdens that, when they are lifted from a man's life, will crush him."

Wise words indeed.

Lewis on Reading

C.S. Lewis, in An Experiment in Criticism (1961):

"The man who is contented to be only himself, and therefore less a self, is in prison. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough. I will see what others have invented. Even the eyes of all humanity are not enough...

Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality... in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself then when I do."

Semi-Pelagians and Visionaries

Chris Rosebrough is a funny fellow. Here are two recent posts from his "Letter of Marque" blog:

The Semi-Pelagian Narrower Catechism

Is Vision Casting Biblical?

Believing in the Real Presence?

Here is a post (dated 9 August) from Lydia McGrew's blog "Extra Thoughts".

The topic of the post is: "Why a Protestant believes in the Real Presence".

The third sentence of Lydia's post says: "...the question has arisen as to whether there is good Scriptural reason to believe in something more than memorialism as a view of the Lord's Supper".

I need to read Lydia's post with an honest and open mind, for two reasons: (1) I respect the work that Lydia has done in the area of analytic philosophy, and (2) Regarding the Lord's Supper, I have always been an intuitive, automatic, and dyed-in-the-wool supporter of memorialism, without taking the trouble to study the whole issue properly.

Defining Secular Humanism

Here is an excellent extended definition of secular humanism by Stephen Law, who lectures in philosophy at the University of London. It is all too easy to caricature secular humanism by defining it too broadly or too narrowly, but I think Law's account is spot on.