It’s been a while, hasn’t it? For the past year, I have been a wilderness season. This period is a conglomerate of happenstance and intentionality. While trying to decide some next steps for myself in a fluid world, I likewise recognized a need for me to take a step back to listen, reflect, learn. Part of …
Category Archives: Existentialism
The Sacred Art of Shutting Up
Over the past six months or so, I have intentionally withdrawn from much of the public dialogue and writing that I had become accustomed to over the past few years. Practicality played a role in this decision. I was in the last phase of completing the manuscript for my first book, which consumed much of …
‘mother!’ and the Honest Portrayal of Christian Living
By the time the end credits roll on Darren Aronofosky’s new film, mother!, you sit speechless in your seat, nearly paralyzed, by what you just experienced. And there is no more appropriate word to describe this film than experience. Make no mistake, this is not a fun film. Hell, it’s not even enjoyable. Yet in all its …
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Merton’s Guide through Political Unrest
“The greatest need of our time,” Thomas Merton said, “is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds and makes of all the political and social life a mass illness. Without this housecleaning we cannot begin to see.” Like many, I have bought into the political rhetoric of 21st …
2015: The Year My Faith Became Free
2015 was one of those years that, upon quick reflection, you want to forget. On an international level, there’s been chaos. Violent extremism ravages our world. Bias and prejudice plague us. Guns continue to kill. On a personal level, there has been family hardship and difficult times. I was also let go from my teaching …
The King & the Maiden: Kierkegaard’s Christmas Parable
I’m largely going to leave this post to Kierkegaard’s own words from his famous “The King & the Maiden” parable from his book, Philosophical Fragments. I do want to offer a few cursory thoughts as to why this parable is significant for us this Christmas season. Invoking “The King & the Maiden” is not new …
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O Come, Emmanuel
As my roommate and I were finishing our meal at a restaurant in Denver last night, a trio of women came and sat at the open spot at the communal table at which we were dining. We exchanged some brief pleasantries, and at one point one of the women started talking about her colleague who …
The Sacred Space of Absence
The desert is a vacancy. It is a place of silence. It is harsh, both in its design and its impact. Yet even in a place as treacherous as the desert, one finds resilience. And it’s beautiful. The thing about the desert, as with all nature, is its welcome embrace of those who find themselves …
Embracing Empathy, Embracing Liberation
I’ve lately been reflecting on the relationship between liberation, empathy, and how we view others. In our internet age, we so often quickly succumb to mocking others in their very public failures. Whether it is a celebrity or sports star who has made a poor choice leading to public shame or yet another political scandal, …
Learning about Christ from an Unlikely Source
One of the glorious things about studying philosophy and theology is that sometimes you find allies in unlikely places. Lately, the “antichrist” himself – Friedrich Nietzsche has become a bit of a refuge with an interpretation of certain aspects of the Gospels. As I’ve been re-reading through Miroslav Volf’s marvelous text Exclusion & Embrace as …
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Former Aspiring Philosopher 