I understand why trust is a virtue, particularly trust in the almighty creator. I don’t understand by it has to be just so blind, nor do I understand why it is the virtue on which salvation from death depends.

Given how tired we are recently because of our over-engagement, I’m going to set an idealistic guideline for how many evenings a week I will make prescheduled plans for: No more than four. Time to start practicing my N word: no.

He’s Indonesian, Japanese, American, now Dutch.
Jimmy Hutasoit, we will miss you very much.
May you find a church with other folks who really really care.
Above it all, we pray, may you find Jesus Christ o’er there.

Mike Licona published a short piece on doubt today that I greatly sympathize with and thus found very encouraging.

Since Licona will be using plausibility “as the most important criterion” (p.113), his chapter entitled “The Historian and Miracles,” which comes up next, had better be good.

He also says that since to hypothesize a real resurrection of Jesus is to hypothesize a singular event, you can’t apply Bayes’ theorem because you can’t asses the prior probability of a unique event (p. 120). But what if your hypothesis is that the report of Jesus’ resurrection is false? Couldn’t you assess the prior probability of a resurrection report’s falsehood by looking at other the veracity of other resurrection reports?

To a skeptic materialist, ’tis no bad news to hear that God will annihilate him for his disbelief, because on that we already agree: To a materialist, annihilation is what happens to us at death anyway.

While walking with God through a nearby neighborhood in the wake of a few spats this morning with wife about housekeeping, it finally clicked: The housekeeping and homemaking is her work. It may even be helpful to compare the house to my computer and desktop workspace. Before I do any of the following again, it would be best to consider how it would make me feel if anyone came to my computer or desktop workspace and did the same:

• Leave items in places they shouldn’t be
• Move items that are not mine
• Change settings without asking
• Argue forcefully about the proper place or protocol for something
• Complainingly refuse to help when asked

The Bible does acknowledge the problem of the selectivity of miracles in Luke 4:23-27.

Religious faith is a virtue only in that it constitutes trust and trustworthiness, the former of which is virtuous only if there is Someone worth trusting. So it’s no wonder atheists question its virtue.

Don’t extort, don’t slander: Easy. Be content with your wages: A little harder. Redistribute your wealth: Um, really? Yet John the Baptist appears to assign similar moral value to all of them.

My aversion to academic writing under deadlines is what doomed any thought of me becoming an academic myself, but a love for academic reading could make this book the first in a long run tomes that pass through my house by way of my friends-of-Penn-State library card.

A few critical notes as I dive back in to Matthew McCormick’s book:

• Concision carries rhetorical power. And McCormick is concise.
• I agree that miracles don’t happen nearly as often as I wish they would or think they should. But that doesn’t mean they don’t happen. How do I account for some of the miracles my friend Marshall describes (i.e., the rain stopping, the word of knowledge for the divorcée, and the healed tumor)? How do I explain the healing ministry of Heidi Baker?

Wife and I share a concern that wherever this doubt and I end up, that I don’t end up lacking in the strength and security that I’ve given her and the kids with my faith in Jesus.

Is it not possible that the strength and security I’ve given comes not from being a conduit for Jesus but rather from my having certainty about my purpose and mission, a surety of a unifying guide, a lodestar principle? If I have a lodestar principle and mission I can settle on other than Jesus—what am I writing?!?—perhaps I can still lend strength to my family even if I end up a doubting Thomas.

friend:

I just wanted to let you know that my thoughts have been with you after hearing about your sleepless night. I think I understand the sort of turmoil you are in; I’ve been deep in it for a while!

I would be delighted to talk more…and/or to let ideas and feelings percolate as needed.

self:

Thank you for your sympathy. You and your husband are good people.

That it wasn’t until thirty-three years old for this devout Christian to experience his first pangs of doubt probably accounts for why it was so intense. It was a doubly novel experience for me: my first doubts and my first involuntarily sleepless night. A doozy I don’t hope to relive.

But now that I’ve slept some and my thoughts have settled, one could say in summary that not much has changed: I am simply less sure of all my Christian beliefs. Still, it’s strange to pray to a god you’re less sure exists. His hiddenness used to be a source of knowing laughter in prayer. Now it’s a bit more serious than that.

Anyway, I...

When I restart my reading of Atheism and the Case Against Christ, I plan to actively take critical notes along the way. To fight back, as it were.

Scott: What would life be like without screens?
Carla: Buggy.
[pause]
Scott [slightly annoyed]: Could you just answer the question, please?
[pause]
Carla [gathering what he meant]: Well, we know what life would be like without screens. We didn’t have screens the first year of our marriage.
Scott: What did we DO?
Carla: We fought.

Carla: Are you ready for your [chickens] meeting tonight?
Scott: Yeah, it’s just a brainstorm and catch-up meeting.
Sullivan: Ketchup? Ketchup is for eggs. Ketchup? Ketchup is for eggs.

Scott [discussing trends in interior design] : Our culture…we highly prize…clean.
Carla: Yeah…it’s disgusting.

The wind and snow were whipping around my house like a SNOW-NADO!

— Sullivan in his weather journal for school

Mommy, I love music more than chocolate chips, more than cookies, and more than princesses and beautiful ponies.

— Éa on hearing Vanhal’s Double Bass Concerto in E flat major on WPSU in the car with Carla

Carla: He looks like the beggar at the Beautiful Gate.
Éa: Who?
Scott: One of the people Jesus healed. One of many.
Éa: Killed?
Scott: HEALED.
Carla: And THAT. is why I don’t want our children to read Bible stories yet.

Carla [upon delivery of Éa’s dessert at Sips Bistro]: Bon appétit!
Éa [correcting her]: Bon appé-YUM!

Carla called me intense this evening at the College Township holiday party and appreciation dinner at the Nittany Lion Inn. Too much face. She meant it as an constructive putdown. Boy, did it dampen my mood. But she’s right: I need to control my energy in social situations that are tied to exciting ideas or where I feel my reputation for something good (singing, progressive vision for the township) goes ahead of me.

Now may our God and Father Himself and Jesus our Lord direct our way to you; and may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, and for all people…so that He may establish your hearts without blame in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints.

— Paul in 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13

A gentle sense of Your presence in my life suffused my soul today after work as I reflected on the verse above. Life was good today, and the verse above indicates that love makes us majestically holy. Wow.

While shopping for a Christmas gift for my mom, I found online lists of the best worship albums of the year. I felt convicted: Why have I not been more avid a seeker of music that is not only musically marvelous but thematically rich? Why have I not more frequently combined my favorite medium (music) with my favorite theme (God)?