Jack Pelham

For as long as a man is clumsy with details and free-handed with his “proofs” of things, you may still be able to help him understand a topic better, but you’ll always be working against that unruly undertow in his mind. It can snatch down a point of fact or of logic and wash it out to sea, as if it had never been established in the first place—even as the waves above seem to be running in the right direction.

The old man is still alive on the outside—
And you can tell it because he is breathing.

And he’s still alive on the inside—
Which you can tell because he is learning.

It’s funny how a life lesson
That I ignored as a child
Can still be sitting
Exactly where I left it,
Waiting for me finally
To pick it up and
Start learning it.

I was mad at it, I suppose,
But now, it seems to be
A dear friend.

The vainglory of teaching has allured so many
Who don’t yet understand the subject matter.

They go on and on about things
They have never vetted—and never will vet—
For they have already got what they wanted—
To stand in the place of honor.

Is there any religion today—or any subset therefore—that calls upon its members to pretend?

He adamantly told me what his “biblical” doctrine on the matter was. And then I showed him three other passages that flatly disagreed with his idea on the passage he showed me.

From that point, it was amazing to watch him not care about the facts, and yet find a way to keep pretending he does.

Perhaps it is the case
That life here
Is meant to be a tougher adventure
Than you assume it must be—
And that you could and should
Learn more than seems convenient—
And overcome more challenges than
It seems one should have to overcome.

What good is that amazing brain you have—
Created and loaned by the
Greatest Thinker Ever Himself—
When it is under the charge of a tired spirit
Who has grown so weary in this world
As no longer to care about learning
And discovering and verifying,
And who doesn’t care if it
Learns the truth of a matter or not?
You are duller than you think you are.

We Christians regularly talk about “the kingdom”, but in my observation, we’re not often very precise about what we mean, and I think this causes us trouble from time to time.

When we say “the kingdom”, we could possibly mean anything between the full domain over which God is king, or that tightest circle of God’s fellowship. And I think we might do ourselves a favor—even if it causes us cognitive work we’d rather not put out—to see if we can be more diligent in saying exactly what we mean. And there’s probably no context where this might make a more useful difference in our lives than in our discussion of whatever it is that our various camps mean when we say “the church”. I observe that for a great many, it seems to be the strong belief that church=kingdom. But my question to that is this:

We have plenty of:

1. Land to grow enough crops and animals to feed everybody on earth.
2. Sunshine to make it grow.
3. Water to make it grow.
4. Air to make it grow.
5. People to do the work that’s required to make it grow.
6. Natural resources from which to make clothing and housing for everybody.

Yet, not everybody has adequate food or shelter or clothing.

So, then, what do we need that we don’t have?