Category: Culture
-
I need a Scholarship to be a Scholar
Read more: I need a Scholarship to be a ScholarIt’s funny to think about how expensive education is. These repositories of knowledge called Universities that provide the key to a better future. First, they require you to leverage that future in the form of student loans. 30k later and half a Masters degree (the 1st 20k was from those good old undergrad years) and…
-
What The Poet’s Dog Has to Say
Read more: What The Poet’s Dog Has to SayIt’s no secret that some of the best books are children’s books. A few weeks ago, I was asked: “If someone were to really get to know you, what three books (besides the Bible) would they really need to read?” (Great conversation question, right?) My husband and I tried to answer for each other to…
-
Lessons from Istanbul – Has Biblical Scholarship Forgotten Its Mission?
Read more: Lessons from Istanbul – Has Biblical Scholarship Forgotten Its Mission?Whelp, I guess this is now a travel blog. For the holidays, my wife and I traveled to Istanbul to spend time with my family. Neither of us had been to Turkey before, so every prior conception of this place was about to be challenged. I kept joking that my only frame of reference was…
-
Expect the Unexpected: What to Watch Out for in “The Last Jedi”
Read more: Expect the Unexpected: What to Watch Out for in “The Last Jedi”If you haven’t seen “The Last Jedi”, don’t continue scrolling…SPOILER ALERT! … … … … … … … … … … The Last Jedi was one for the books (er…films). The story was plain and simple. The Resistance was running away from the overpowering First Order. The entire movie began with their evacuation and ended…
-
Harry Potter & Epiphany
Read more: Harry Potter & EpiphanyLast week we celebrated Christmas, and later this week we’ll be celebrating Epiphany. Although you wouldn’t know it from the way that Christmas is typically celebrated in America – beginning sometime in November and culminating on December 25th – Christmas is a 12 day celebration (hence the famous song). Christmas (in the West) officially ends…
-
Dickens, Death, and the Christian Christmas
Read more: Dickens, Death, and the Christian ChristmasThis week, a woman at my church faces the harrowing decision between two Christmases. On the one hand, she could join a few friends and the son from which she has been estranged, risking the possibility of running into the guy who things “didn’t work out with.” It would be too uncomfortable for her to ask…
-
A Little Thing
Read more: A Little ThingThe Showings: Lady Julian of Norwich 1342-1416 I Julian, there are vast gaps we call black holes, unable to picture what’s both dense and vacant: and there’s the dizzying multiplication of all language can name or fail to name, unutterable swarming of molecules. All Pascal imagined he could not stretch his mind to imagine is…
-
Advent and Jerusalem
Read more: Advent and JerusalemO come! O come! Emmanuel! And ransom captive Israel; That mourns in lonely exile here, Until the Son of God appear. Advent is a time of mournful waiting. Participants in this season undergo a theatrical embodiment of the struggles of the people of God. In this drama, the Church relives, in a sense, a time…
-
The Apocalypse of Santa Claus
Read more: The Apocalypse of Santa ClausAs a scholar of the decades preceding the Great Outage of 2059, I am always intrigued when a “paper” document of such tremendous historical and cultural influence surfaces from the clutter of the past. Rumors of the cultic devotion attributed to pagan deity Santa Claus have circulated through academic circles for years. However, it wasn’t…
-
Coco
Read more: CocoCoco was probably one of the best films I’ve seen this year. The animations and cinematics were just mind-blowing. If I remember correctly, a special sneak peek at Disney California Adventure mentioned that there were more than 8 billion lights used in the Land of the Dead scene–CRAZY. Also, I grew up with folks that…