Refractions and Reflections

---1--- First, in honor of Halloween, here is the best article I ran across in relation to monsters this week. it still had me thinking the day after I read it. "How Monsters Point Us to God" by Paul Pastor in Christianity Today . It talks about how the creation of monsters reveals our fears, including our fears about God. ---2--- I took the GRE today!! I got "unofficial" scores on the Verbal and Quantitative Reasoning sections (I got a 162 and 147 in them, respectively). I was disappointed with my score on the Quantitative (math) portion, because the degree I am applying for is in physics. BUT, in my defense, I haven't had math since I was a sophomore in high school (15 years ago), so I think the fact that I did as well as I did should indicate at least a potentiality that I can do well in the subject. I also finished the rest of the application process, including my letter of interest. ---3--- Here is part of that letter of interest, in which I ...

---1--- First, I read a couple of REALLY great blog posts this week elsewhere, and I wanted to share them. Both participate in 7QT, so some of you may have already read them. The first, in fact, is the post in which the host of 7QT, Jennifer, shared the video of the forum she participated in this week on Exploring God. If you didn't watch the video, I highly encourage you to watch it. It's just really good. The second was a post on sin by Leah Libresco over at Unequally Yoked. I wrote on sin, too, the day before she posted it, so it caught my attention. She sets up an analogy wherein she compares general "sin" to "punching someone in the face." She goes further, in reference to the line in Amazing Grace, "'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear," and says: Punching people in the face is pretty bad, but what’s  worse  is punching them and not  noticing  and losing the opportunity to repent or make amends.  Then the relationship betwe...

This is my final semester at seminary working on my master of divinity. When thinking of what to write for "V" I remembered one of the classes I took my first semester in seminary. The class was called "Leadership in Ministry," and its focus was to help us become more aware of our own strengths and weaknesses and goals as leaders in the Church. One of the assignments was to write out a statement of our personal core values; we were to choose four. Here is what I wrote: The following are four of my personal core values which I intend to implement and promote through my ministry: Education: I think a lot of evil can be attributed to ignorance. In ministry I will push both general education for the community(ies) in which I serve, and discipleship within the church(es) I pastor (or wherein I otherwise lead). Wisdom: Ecclesiastes 9:17 (KJV) says, “The words of wise men are heard in quiet more than the cry of him that ruleth among fools.” Sometimes we must lear...

Donald Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz and Storyline ) tweeted the following on St. Patrick’s Day:   “If they made a movie about you achieving your goals, would it be meaningful? If not, choose different goals.”   I have thought recently that I am on the path to choosing my goals based on their meaningfulness. My ideas are fairly altruistic – I believe the “social gospel” really IS a major part of being a Christian. God’s heart is for justice, mercy, humility, and love. Part of being a Christian is translating these ideals into more prevalent realities in the world at large.    But this tweet from Donald Miller caught me off guard. One of my “bigger” personal goals in life is to become a professor (probably of theology). Me, explaining my theory of relativity (you may have heard of it?). Yes, I need a shave, but some things are just more important, ya know? But believe it or not, I’ve never really stopped to consider why I want to be a professor...