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Waterways
Right now I’m reading Tim Blanning’s The Pursuit of Glory, a history of Europe in the early modern period. It covers a great many areas of life across a wide range of countries. For those who think of Europe as somehow one big culture, that’s not true now, and it was even less true back then. This is a period where modern nations are just starting to form, often by the will of one ruler who has enough power to start uniting the lands around him. Even once they were politically united, there was often a great difference from one region to the next, and from one city to the…
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How to Take Smart Notes
For the past year, I’ve been hard at work trying to improve my reading. My reading habits had waned a few years after I left school, relying on audiobooks and podcasts to supplement a busy schedule and growing family. But as I prepare to go back to school, reading well is possibly one of the most important skills one could work on. Of course, reading well for academia is not simply a matter of reading quickly (although it seems one can never read fast enough!). It’s also a matter of what you do with what you are reading. I attended a workshop on speedreading techniques in seminary, and over time…
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For Andrew
A few months ago, I heard that a childhood friend of mine passed away. His name was Andrew. I met Andrew through his dad, who was one of my leaders in Stockade at my church. For those of you who don’t know, Stockade was the 3rd-6th grade program from Boys’ Brigade, something like a Christian Boy Scouts. It was great time: singing loud songs, camping, playing in the gym, woodworking projects, a pinewood derby, and of course Bible verses, lessons in Christian character, etc. Perhaps I’ll reflect more on that another day. Andrew was half a year younger than me, and because of where his birthday fell, he had been…
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Everything’s New
It was 2018. I was coming out of a low point. Months of struggling at church in 2017 resulted in starting over somewhere new. I was holding my new daughter, who an an infant was already one of the most determined people I knew. I had turned the corner on another big trial, one only my closest friends knew about. And I was listening to the new version of a song from my favorite band which had recently broken up (as all my favorite bands seem to do), performed this time by the band leader by himself. With the song playing on the laptop there in the kitchen, I danced…
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The Power of Memory
When we left the Israelites, God was in the middle of doing something miraculous for them. The chapter breaks in your Bible are not part of the original text; they were a help added later for reference, just like page numbers. But it’s helpful to treat this part of the story separately because even though it’s a continuation of the same miracle, the emphasis is on something completely different: remembering. I confess my performance in Hebrew was not my best, but I do remember a few things from class, and one of them was the importance of memory and remembering in the Old Testament and for the Jewish people. Over…