Bible, Then or Now?

Is the Bible history? If we read the Bible with a linear sense of time past, time present, and time future, if we read the Bible looking only for words God spoke and deeds God did once upon another time, then we may miss God speaking and God acting through the scriptures today.  When we read the Bible and place it in the past alone, we may try to trap God between the covers, seeking a simple check-your-brain-at-the-door morality with definitive interpretations and implications. We may even profess, “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.”  Instead of saying like Mary and Isaiah, “Here I am,” and like Samuel, “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.” Continue reading “Bible, Then or Now?”

J.K. Rowling, Walt Disney, and Mother Teresa

   What do Walt Disney, J.K. Rowling, and Mother Teresa have in common?
   Great imaginations and transforming experiences on trains.

I have been amazed by the imagination of J.K. Rowling who envisioned such a wonderful worlds in her mind and gave us vocabulary of words like quidditch and Hogwarts. I have also been amazed by the imagination and creativity that put her stories into movies and then into rides at Universal.
Looking into her background, I found that she, Walt Disney, and Mother Teresa all had life changing experiences through visions they had on trains.
Continue reading “J.K. Rowling, Walt Disney, and Mother Teresa”

What is a Moment?

Moments Are Experiences of Time

The Moment Cover 1 front1

A minute is sixty seconds and an hour is sixty minutes no matter where I am or what I am doing. However, my experience of sixty seconds or sixty minutes is quite different depending on where and how I am. If I am at home, in bed, asleep, sixty minutes seems like no time at all, but if I am outside on a cold night without enough clothing to keep me warm, then sixty minutes seems like much longer. There is the never changing measurement of time, but there is also how we experience it.

We can’t experience a minute, feel an inch, or taste a gram. They are all measurements. Albert Camus gives some simple ways to become aware of the difference between time experienced and time measured,

By spending one’s days on an uneasy chair in a dentist’s waiting-room; by remaining on one’s balcony all of a Sunday afternoon; by listening to lectures in a language on doesn’t know; by traveling by the longest and least-convenient train routes, and of course standing all the way; by lining up at the box-office of theaters and then not buying a seat; and so forth.
Continue reading “What is a Moment?”