Over the past six months or so, I have intentionally withdrawn from much of the public dialogue and writing that I had become accustomed to over the past few years.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 …
Category Archives: Life
The Man in the Doorway
Like I do early each Sunday morning, I walked out of my apartment to take a contemplative walk around Denver’s Cheesman Park. Complete with coffee in hand, the bright Sunday morning sun shined through my apartment window inviting me into a needed quiet space in the middle of a normally busy city. The normalcy only …
There’s No Charge for Kindness
About a week before Christmas I was walking out of a store along Colfax Avenue in Denver. Unexpected snow had fallen a few days prior, making many of the sidewalks slippery. In a rush, I walked swiftly out of the store and less than a block later found myself momentarily airborne as a patch of …
Help! Trump is Coming to Thanksgiving!
To keep you growing is to keep you vulnerable to life and love itself. -Richard Rohr, The Divine Dance Two weeks after the presidential election, the yelling and fighting continues. It’s not outlandish or hyperbolic to think that this will continue for some time, long past the inauguration in January. For many, the election may cause …
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 …
Have We Become Numb to Stories of Violence?
Like most days, I spent my lunch on Thursday outside browsing some of my favorite websites. As I clicked my browser on I, like many, read early reports of yet another school shooting, this time in Oregon. And then I casually moved on to another site. And then I stopped. My immediate thought was not …
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“There’s Only One God … And He Doesn’t Dress Like that.”
There’s a scene in The Avengers where Captain America is about to jump out of a jet to intervene in a conflict between Iron Man and Thor. Prior to his jump, the Black Widow cautions against this intervention, because Iron Man and Thor are essentially gods. Captain America shrugs this off, “There’s only one God, ma’am, …
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Freedom & Responsibility
I take the title of this post from a chapter of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Existentialism and Human Emotions. While Sartre is often drug over the steaming hot coals, I do find some meaning in his writings. Sartre purports that man is “condemned to be free” thereby endorsing ultimate human freedom. It must be noted that the …
Despair:Sin
Each individual is freedom essentially. Each person is free to chose oneself. This could lead to a flourishing life, or a life of continual bondage, which ultimately restricts one’s freedom. There comes a time (or, many times) in one’s life in which one finds oneself in a crux. The variables will change as much is …
Influence of Philosophy: The Categorical Imperative
I am often asked why I teach philosophy. I give a variety of answers depending on the circumstances of the question. One I give more frequently than not is to present how ideas have consequences (whether the ideas and/or the consequences are beneficial or detrimental). We see this in history. Take Rev. Martin Luther King, …
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Former Aspiring Philosopher 