Ever since the Protestant reformation began, Christian theologians have been arguing about one of what I call The Two Great Mysteries of the Bible – the problem of evil, and predestination. This latter issue has polarized into two, largely opposite camps within Christendom – Calvinism, and...
The Christian faith claims to answer a lot of tough questions about life, the universe, and everything. For most of life’s dilemmas, the bible seems to present what it considers to be definitive, complete, and clear answers. Such world view questions, often unanswerable by science...
Life is tough, and when it gets overwhelming, we lose hope that the future will ever get better. How do we restore a positive expectation of the future that’s based on reality? And is Christian hope anything more than secular hope, and in the end,...
This post is part of a Series. Everyone jokes about midlife crisis until they get there. Me, however, I’ve not joked about it since my 30’s, where I experienced what I initially thought was a premature mid life crisis. As I learned then, we all go...
One of the most interesting of epistemological arts is the art of debate. While we all like a good fight, we also like a fair fight, and those of us who are more interested in truth than victory like a civil debate rather than a...
Being a relative latecomer to jazz appreciation, I am often surprised by great songs that I had no idea were standards. One of the earliest was a version of Mood Indigo by legendary B3 artist Jimmy Smith – I played this ‘great song’ over the...
Autumn Leaves is a 1945 French song “Les feuilles mortes” (literally “The Dead Leaves”) with music by Hungarian-French composer Joseph Kosma and lyrics by poet Jacques Prévert, the Hungarian title is “Hulló levelek” (Falling Leaves). It quickly became a jazz standard, especially after the song was featured in the title sequence...
Last weekend, I had the pleasure of visiting the central coast California town of San Luis Obispo (SLO), and at the weekly farmer’s market, a band was playing a song that I *knew*, but could not name. After searching my mp3’s, I found it –...
