Sabbatical 2024

"What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called the Messiah?" and they respond, "Crucify him!" -- Matthew 27:22 So I watched a video from Jonathan Pageau. He's a Christian iconographer who studies religious symbols. You can watch the video to get the details, but he is 100% certain the Olympics ceremonies were depicting The Last Supper, not the festival of Dionysus. His insight is really good. It's worth a watch just for the history of the symbols, even if you don't like the story he's telling. I was thinking about this a bit and some ideas popped in. Let me try to noodle them out. So what happened in the ceremony? A lesbian took the place of Jesus at the table. She embodied Jesus, the Lord of the Christian tradition. And what happened to the religious community? Angry cries of blasphemy. Now let's go back to the actual last supper. At the behest of the Pharisees, Jesus was tried, convicted of starting a rebellion and was crucified. And what go...

I have a sabbatical morning routine. I get up, I take my pills. I put on the coffee, heating up yesterday's leftovers if there are any. I sit in my chair and start thinking about what I want to blog. And, like clockwork, my cat Cosmo jumps up on my lap and sticks his face in mine, demanding to be petted. This morning, I was trying to dream up some big, all-encompassing abstract talking point. And Cosmo was having none of it. He said, "Nope. You're gonna pay attention to me." I think we need reminders like this. We get so caught up in the world drama. I know I want all the problems to be fixed, all tensions to be resolved and paradise to come. And, for whatever reason, it's not happening. Coming from a Pentecostal background, I was taught that God is sovereign over all. And when problems come, we offer up our prayers and watch the miracle happen. The trouble is, I've never seen that. My prayers seemed to not move the needle one bit. The most poignant case in my...

Does the sacred exist? Are there things worth fighting for? The answer seems to be yes, but what are those things? How do we decide what to hold on to and what to let go? The Olympic protests are an example of people defending what they feel is sacred. As did the people of January 6. And the George Floyd protesters. And Occupy Wall Street. And the civil rights movement. And becoming a nation. The list goes on. Sacred is defined as connected to God. And the term God is tricky to define as it can conjure up images of Zeus and George Washington (inside joke). For now, let's say God is the embodiment of goodness itself. So when goodness being threatened, what should one do? First, I think we need to know if goodness is subjective or objective. For those who subscribe to the idea of transcendent morality, they would say goodness is objective, regardless of personal opinion. For those who say it's subjective, morality is something defined by the collective and can be shaped as they s...

Because the opening ceremonies are still pretty hot on my YouTube feed, I'm still thinking about it. I was talking with my sister and we came up with a phrase: You do you and I'll do me. Leave it alone and let it be. When there's conflict and tension, we can choose to ignore it or we can choose to engage with it. As I think about it, two pictures come to mind. The first is a container of water with dirt in it and the second is a snow globe. With the dirty water, the more you move it around and agitate it, the more it stays dirty. Only by leaving it alone will the sediment fall to the bottom, leaving clear water. If we see conflict as a bad thing, it's best to leave it alone to get back to clear. The snow globe, on the other hand, is meant to be shaken. The globe becomes more interesting and beautiful to look at when its shaken. With this analog, conflict creates opportunity for learning and understanding, which can bring out the best in humanity. So, what's the appr...

So I've been watching the reactions of my friends on Facebook regarding the Olympic opening ceremonies. I've seen essentially two types of reactions: I'm offended. You need to chill out. I don't want to comment on which side is correct (I think they both are in their own way). I'm more looking at it from a human psychology and existential perspective. The more I think about, the more the idea of existence as a drama makes sense to me. A continuous cycle of setup, confrontation and resolution. And the most captivating dramas evoke the strongest emotions. I've mentioned before that there's this book called The Law of One. Woo-woo disclaimer: It's written by three people who believe they channeled an alien race named Ra. The book states that this world is in a state of being polarized towards two different outcomes: service to self and service to others. People are figuring out if they want to pursue group goals and help the collective or personal goals and...

I was chatting with my sister-in-law about some health topics. She's a nurse practitioner and I always appreciate her insights. We were chatting about weight and its correlation to health. Traditionally, science has used BMI as an indicator, giving specific "normal" ranges based on age and gender. Almost every trainer and dietician I've spoken with says BMI is a horrible metric because it doesn't account for body composition, fitness levels, genetics, lifestyle, etc. Short answer: just having a BMI in the normal range doesn't make you healthy. That being said, my doctor recommended I lose some weight, specifically body fat as muscle loss is never seen as a good thing. When I was talking with my sister-in-law, things like body image, fat phobia, misogyny and health industry grift came up. Basically, there's an idea that our culture emphasizes a certain body type as attractive, gets people to become dissatisfied with their current body shape, then prescribes...