Recent Reading
I like it when I discover what other people have read. It gives me ideas about books I would like to read, authors to investigate, or even genres to consider. Here is a list of some of my recent reading with some brief notations. Novels: The Edible Woman, Margaret Atwood – Atwood is one of…
Continue readingIs Christianity Hard or Easy? – an excerpt from Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
No preamble or discussion required. The ordinary idea which we all have before we become Christians is this. We take as a starting point our ordinary self with its various desires and interests. We then admit that something else – call it ‘morality’ or ‘decent behaviour’, or ‘the good of society’ – has claims on…
Continue readingHabits of the Soul
A couple of days ago I quoted C.S. Lewis regarding “wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.” As a follow-up to that allow me to direct our attention to another quote from the same book. In this section Lewis is speaking very specifically about…
Continue readingA First Faint Gleam of Heaven
One of the things I love so much about the writings of C.S. Lewis is his ability to write succinct, clear sentences. He has the ability to say things that I already believe yet he says them in a way I could never have said them. I read his words and think, “Yes, that is…
Continue readingAtheism is Too Simple
I am in the process of re-reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis with some men from The Bridge Church. I had forgotten what a great read it truly is. Every chapter has something quotable. Today, I read his perspective on “atheism being too simple.” Often our explanations of things such as atheism or, for that…
Continue readingMiracles and Moses
Moses was a man who saw many miracles. Perhaps he is the man who saw more miracles than any other man who has ever lived. If we try to number just how many miracles he experienced it becomes hard to measure. His miraculous salvation from death when all the Israelite males were to be put…
Continue readingGilead
Marilynne Summers Robinson is an American writer who won a Pulitzer Prize in fiction for her 2004 novel, Gilead. The story is told through the voice of a man named John Ames who has been a preacher in Gilead, Iowa all of his life just like his father and grandfather before him. He is a…
Continue readingNewton
“Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done.” – Isaac Newton* Isaac Newton is often referred to as an English mathematician & physicist who lived from 1642 – 1727. Yet few remember that…
Continue readingPicking Up Dimes
In Douglas Wilson’s introduction to the book Is Christianity Good For the World: A Debate, Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson, Wilson has this to say. God knew that we were going to need to pick up dimes, and so He gave us fingernails. He knew that twilights displayed in blue, apricot, and battle gray would…
Continue readingFollow-up to “Things That Can’t Be Explained”
I was thinking about what Alan Lightman had said about the Osprey flying over his head as he watched from the deck of his house as I went for a run past portions of False Creek. It occurred to me that I too had had an unusual, hard-to-explain encounter with animals a while ago. The…
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