Not Enough Green Squares (January 31, 2022)

Sometimes the deck appears to stacked and it’s hard to see how life will do anything but go from bad to worse. How do we have joy then?

The End of the (Real) Cold War (April 26, 2021)

As we wrap up “alive,” we find that the resurrection speaks to more than just us having a body again: it speaks to restoration for the world.

What is a Resurrection Body? (April 19, 2021)

What does it mean to be resurrected? We have lots of ideas, but are they what God is actually promising? As we continue through 1 Corinthians 15 this week, we get to that central point — and struggle — with the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. It’s so important to understand so that we can approach life and death with the hope God gives us.

Spare Parts of Belief? (April 12, 2021)

This week on Steadfast, I looked at the promise of resurrection for each of us. Many in our society would accept a lot of Jesus’ teachings and yet discount the resurrection as just a comforting myth to help us cope with death. Paul has speaks very clearly in the next part of 1 Cor. 15 on why that cannot be.

Not Just the Flu

This is a really good piece on where the coronavirus stands, particularly in comparison to the flu.

Friends, please keep trying to #flattenthecurve. It is working and we can be ingenious to find ways to keep life, ministry and work moving along — I’m seeing so many people being so creative already. I think for the Christian this truly does come under “loving your neighbor.” Even if, say, I get a mild case, what if the person I give it to doesn’t? I know a number of people sent to ICU by this and one who has died so far.

The flu can be bad, but I have never known so many people severely afflicted during a single flu season and those run for six months. This is the situation in sum: even with drastic response unlike anything we do for the flu, in just one month, this has killed more people than a bad flu season of six months. That is sobering and calls us to carefulness as we value the preciousness of each life God has made.

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

My grandmother died tonight after a horrible battle with Alzheimers that was clearly ongoing for at least seven years. It is truly a most cruel of diseases, but one thing it cannot be accused of is using the element of surprise against its victims. Still I feel a bit of “cognitive dissonence” about this — it is hard to sync the reality with my intellectual knowledge that this was imminent.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

-Dylan Thomas