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Essay

Room for God and Others

But, you may say, you were going to speak about science and higher education. What does that have to do with ‘room for God and others’? I will try to explain. When I received your text message suggesting ‘Science and ...

Essay

The Illusion of Personhood: Generative AI and Simulated Communication

AI takes different forms. Artificial general intelligence (AGI) refers to computational tools capable of general-purpose reasoning. AGI research is as ambitious and speculative as efforts to build quantum computers. A...

Essay

Why I Am (Perhaps Not) an Evangelical

I have always loved science and math. I have a vivid memory of a motoneuron with a myelinated axon that wound back and forth across the centerfold page of a beloved childhood science book. I was an avid reader of Mart...

Poetry

The Borders of Belonging

respected not befriended of use but not desired received not invited needed but not known recalled not remembered reminded but not reassured a curiosity uncollected routinely fed rarely held

Poetry

There once was a girl from Tallahassee

There once was a girl from Tallahassee Who believed that swearing was trashy &emsp; Or perhaps even worse &emsp; So when required to curse She spoke words that were sharp, apt, and classy

Poetry

The Wounded Statue

The wounded statue Woke to pain An amputee No longer at ease With those Who would not bleed

Poetry

The Pool

Most of the world My mind reflects Like dancing light On the surface of a pool But you A warm stone Submerge Without a splash And breathe

Poetry

Something

Something is more than Nothing. Nothing and Nothing make Nothing. Something plus Nothing makes Something. Something plus Something makes Something else. Nothing from Nothing leaves Nothing. Nothing from Something does...

Poetry

Sloppity Sue

I once knew a girl by the name (this is true) Of Slippity Sloppity Sluppity Sue. So incredibly fat, she might have been two, For Sue loved to eat and would eat all in view. One day with delight, rowing home after crew...

Poetry

Siren and Cephalopod

an aria spray caresses the vessel's blouse bosom suffused with song swelling, taut and drenched propelling the mast impelling ship and sailor toward the ravishing bird her succulent word: come hither, seaman, bowsprit...

Poetry

Sheri

What fills this doll who walks with me? I have seen her held too tightly, Carried by the arm, bent without complaint. If I had a shirt I would lay it down Or kick a puddle to test a seam. Certainly, she is well-worn, ...

Poetry

Online Dating, Wholly in Haiku

HER: Would anyone mind if I composed this profile wholly in haiku? As you may suspect, I’m a little different from most girls you meet. Gifted in music. If you want to fall in love, make me sing to you. Are you self-a...

Poetry

Let Us Be Shallow Together

Come, let us be shallow together And swing in the wild hammock Of our Father's open hand Leaning out from kissing kayaks Lounging in an effervescent spring Your words are a fiddle's ditty Joyfully rising to the surfac...

Poetry

Joseph, Brave and Extraneous

Bethlehem's Spring cradles The Mother of God nurses The Son of God holds (Grasps but does not rattle) A toy begotten by his lesser father Mary agonizes over the wooden gift How odd, she thinks, to fear splinters Pierc...

Poetry

Inward Bound

Melinda Miller, inward bound, Lost in woods of life bourgeois, Amidst her mental life, a flaw. Concerns endlessly circle ’round Her fearful mind. Loop without end! Even while talking to a friend (One of four) and seve...

Poetry

Hair grows

Hair grows Everywhere From the tip of your nose To the top of your toes And when you take off your clothes—beware! Even in your underwear. If anyone knew How come they grew He’d be a millionaire ‘Cause nobody knows Ab...

Poetry

For Mandi, Who Loves Tennis

I taught tennis in high school Mandi was my nine-year old pupil An angel, a friend. One morning Running to the school bus Mandi waived to her father And was run over by a car He gathered her limbs from the street She ...

Poetry

Emily Blue

What did the Loch Ness say upon that Wed-ness-day? He said, “Scotlanders, beware, I’m coming up for air.” And as the water parted and rolled briskly off his back, Emily Blue, age 92, had a heart attack. And while all ...

Poetry

Commander Helmut von Fred

Commander Helmut von Fred Wore a colander upon his head. &emsp; When asked, “Why a strainer &emsp; On top of your brain, Sir?” “To protect my noodle,” he said.

Poetry

Cable Monopoly Haiku

Another two-hour block spent Waiting for service No internet. COX suckers.

Poetry

Archimedes’ Breakfast

When Archimedes ate his Wheaties He liked to watch them float. He’d hypothesize about their size And the time they’d take to soak. Thus occupied one day, he sighed, “I have no room to gloat. I dream of lakes of cereal...

Poetry

Anxiety grins

Anxiety grins I kneel and pray No teeth

Poetry

After Reading Dostoevsky

I confessed I was a thief. You called me a liar. “I forgive you,” you said, Because your heart is good.” Murderer.

Saying

Beauty and worship

I want to create something beautiful. Whenever I listen to music, or read a good book, I feel like I want to make an artifact: an essay, a blog, a course, a life of love, that is beautiful. The world needs beauty and ...

Saying

Corporations are not people

I hold these truths to be self-evident. (1) Corporations are not people. (2) Money is not speech.

Saying

Emptiness and peace

Do not confuse emptiness with peace. Do not confuse peace for emptiness.

Saying

Faith is not credulity

Faith is the evidence of things unseen, not a refuge from what is demonstrable or inferred. Faith is not credulity. Faith is a pearl and an open door, not studied ignorance and a closed mind.

Saying

Faith is the substance of things hoped for…

Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen, not a refuge from truths that can be demonstrated or inferred.1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not ...

Saying

God is not honored by simplifying truth

God is not honored by insisting that the truth be simpler than it is.

Saying

If one can lie with statistics…

If one can lie with statistics, just imagine the possibilities for data science. 2021 January 31

Saying

Journaling is…

Writing from the place of knowing that I am loved. Living from that place. Looking back to see what God has done in my life.

Saying

Lord, make me a fool for Christ…

Lord, make me a fool for Christ. And for no other reason.

Saying

Our wins are not the result of religious superiority…

Our wins are not the result of religious superiority; our defeats do not signal loss of God’s favor. In joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, we are conquerers blessed with every spiritual gift and true knowle...

Saying

Technical proficiency is not an escape clause

Whatever the relative merits of humanistic education and scientific training, technical proficiency is not an escape clause to the question, ‘How shall we live?’

Saying

The world demands positions

I am no longer interested in opinion, especially my own. It is not God, but the world, that insists I take a position on every conceivable issue, a position that can be articulated and defended.

Saying

True myths

Scientists pride themselves in precision, accuracy, and intellectual honesty. Yet when scientists communicate, an interesting true story is imagined in order to manifest the significance of recent work. This is accept...

Saying

Understanding and expertise

Understanding is an intellectual submission to the truth of a matter. An expert is a life-long student of her subject.

Saying

We talk of a personal relationship with God

We talk of a personal relationship with God. If that means anything, it means that God loves me for who I am (meaning me, specifically) and I love God for who he is (because of his character). What exactly do you love...

Saying

Writing is the act of telling the truth

It has been said that writing is an act of hope, an act of courage, but God gave me my writing so that I might tell the truth. For me, writing is the act of telling the truth.

Thought

A mountain of facts

Jules Henri Poincaré wrote, “Science is built up of facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.” I agree, but would add the following: “When a mou...

Thought

Another room for science method

A room is not a conclusion. It is a way of refusing premature closure, a place where science, faith, doubt, and love can continue speaking without needing to devour one another.

Thought

August 19 writing question

The question is not whether I have something to say. The question is whether I will make a form hospitable enough to receive it, revise it, and offer it without needing it to solve my life.

Thought

Civilian casualty

When God judges Israel, how does he remain faithful and just toward individual people? When the Assyrians conquered Israel, or the Babylonians invaded Judah, many people who were not responsible for systemic injustice...

Thought

Co-opting the flag

I have been amazed at the way the alt-right has co-opted not only the flag, but phrases such as “totalitarian” (referring to the political correctness of the left) or “Orwellian” (referring to Obamacare). In the same ...

Thought

Decolonializing science

Science is a human practice before it is an institution of authority. To decolonialize science is not to abandon truth, but to ask who has been authorized to name it, fund it, teach it, and benefit from it.

Thought

Deep and Broad Scholarship

The craft of research seems to be taking away from deep thinking and real scholarship. I would like to know what I am really good at. I would like to restrict myself in some way so that I can actually have time to go ...

Thought

Democracy and the invisible hand

Can we really expect democracy to work when so many people are “not even trying”? What “system” is able to protect us from the ruthless and selfish elements? What “system” can work when such a large fraction of the el...

Thought

Eco on fascism sounds to me like Trump

The other day I used the word “fascist” and midspeech I confessed that I did not know what the word meant. Turning to Wikipedia’s definitions of fascism, most of my questions were not answered. However, I was struck b...

Thought

Every wind of teaching

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. (Ephesians 4:14 NIV) H...

Thought

Following directions

Ms. ____, my 4th-grade teacher, passed out an exam that was impossible to complete in the time allotted. She told the class to read the directions, located at the top of the page, and begin. I did not read the directi...

Thought

Freedom from being pedagogical

Antonella commented on my “Room for God and Others” essay and suggested that to find my voice in writing for a broader audience, I might have to free myself from the requirement to be pedagogical. She said I did not s...

Thought

God forms ears

The servant’s tongue is shaped not by pride but by listening and learning. God forms our words by first forming our ears. The servant does not speak to impress or dominate but to sustain.

Thought

How much is a shit ton?

How much is a shit ton? About three mother loads.1 2013 Although you may dig a load of ore out of a mother lode, the spelling “motherload” is a mistake that is probably influenced by people thinking it means something...

Thought

How shall I teach faith?

I know that I like math and biology. I know that I want to keep learning more of both. Sometimes I think I want to write or be a theologian, as well as be a scientist, because learning and thoughtfulness are so much a...

Thought

I have been enjoying Timothy Snyder’s YouTube videos…

I have been enjoying Timothy Snyder’s YouTube videos. In one of them, he introduced the term “totalitarianism” to a discussion of populism, oligarchy, and authoritarianism. His definition of totalitarianism focused on...

Thought

I struggled to read as a child

I struggled to read as a child. I could follow the directions to build an Estes model rocket, but I had difficulty comprehending long-form texts. In second grade I was frustrated with a paperback novel whose cover art...

Thought

Institute of humanity

An institute of humanity would take persons, not products, as the proper unit of concern. It would ask not only what we can make, measure, or optimize, but what kind of people our knowledge is making of us.

Thought

Jesus' voice and the stranger's words

Scripture is not a cabinet of detachable spiritual levers. It is wrong to quote Scripture with the conscious or unconscious intent to get people to do what you want them to do. I am learning to tell the difference bet...

Thought

Jesus, Tactile and Near

The problem with wishing Jesus were more present, tactile, substantial, able to touch as well as to see, is that he says that he is with us in the Spirit and that is better for us. And he says that he is with us in th...

Thought

Language and the desire to understand

One of the problems of language is that unless both parties are trying to communicate and understand one another, the attempts at making contact are destined to fail. Communication without the desire to understand one...

Thought

Meaninglessness and Finite Fields

I spent two hours reading, thinking, and SageMath-ing about finite fields of order (q=p^n) being vector spaces over (F_p). This was quite fun and helpful. I could say it was for my matroids class, but that is not what...

Thought

More of God, More of Man

When I ask for “more of God,” perhaps His answer is “more of man.” A human answer to my prayer would not be “less God” (Barth). Perhaps God would like to bless me, or be closer to me, through his people, through my in...

Thought

Neighbor, not competitor

In Sabbath as Resistance, Walter Brueggemann writes that “the system will turn one’s neighbor into a competitor.” That sentence resonates with my desire for a more open and collaborative scholarship. Should I return t...

Thought

Not Mine to Carry

It is not that I feel unloved. I feel loved by God and family. But there is a burden that I am carrying, and I am carrying it alone. When I say “carry it alone,” I do not mean that the burden is for those I love. Not ...

Thought

Open questions and inner life

All my life there has been a tension between humanistic and scientific pursuits. My exploration of the classics and philosophy was an antidote of sorts for my largely technical education. Agitation over what I perceiv...

Thought

Psalm 146ish: after Mel’s sermon on 2016 September 25

Do not trust in presidents and ideologies, traditions and institutions, creativity, ingenuity or goodwill. No human being or organization can truly liberate and heal. These cannot offer pardon and release, not really,...

Thought

Rejected by the Fellowship for Being a Scientist

I have always felt that I was called to teach at a secular university because I would much rather be rejected by my academic colleagues for being a Christian, and be blessed for this, than be rejected by the fellowshi...

Thought

Responsible faith

A responsible faith does not fear questions that are asked in love of truth. It fears, rather, the false peace that comes from refusing to ask them.

Thought

Science as a Liberal Art

I am a professor at a liberal arts university. My research area is mathematical biology. From my vantage point as a scientist and mathematician at William & Mary, we seem to do much better with the creme de la cre...

Thought

Science, method, third room

The question is not whether science leaves room for God. The question is whether our accounts of God and science leave room for truth, humility, and the neighbor who sees from another angle.

Thought

Scientism is bad religion

Science is a tried and true method through which we may learn about the natural world. Scientism is science that has metastasized into worldview, dogma, and ideology. Science is an invaluable approach to discovery. Th...

Thought

Specifically Christian function

What is my specifically Christian function? I have thought that it might involve discernment, teaching faith, writing, and you know there is a fear factor whenever I think of big life-changing possibilities. But I am ...

Thought

Technical Prowess and Impotence

I have always felt an impotence associated with technical prowess. Quite apart from whatever truth there may be in the Dilbert-style “tech-weenie” comments, my experience of MIT led me to feel like we were rural compa...

Thought

The Distance to Jesus' Humanity

I have read that seeing Jesus is to adore him. If you ever manage to see him as he truly is, you will surely fall in love with him once again. See: Jesus is one of us, proving that God is for us and closer than ever. ...

Thought

The ability to see goodness

When I worked at Learning Experiences, Inc., we sometimes took the students to the mall. I recall one afternoon when the students were having fun together, walking arm-and-arm in the fashion of “Hey, we’re the Monkeys...

Thought

The blessing of T’Pau (a dream)

I was coming of age, and having taken a long pilgrimage, the end of my journey was a demanding hike up a red mountain. I sought an oracle from T’Pau, the renowned Vulcan priestess, elder, and sage. It was an arduous j...

Thought

The child belongs

Where is the space or place for non-economically mediated social relations? Part of coming to the Father “as a child” is “without social status,” but also perhaps on the basis of the sort of trust a child has for a pa...

Thought

The voices to be discerned

I am testing everything I hear. Everything I read. My own thoughts. My own emotions, most often fears. I am testing everything my colleagues say, everything the institution insists is important, and everything other C...

Thought

Theoretical Biology Needs to Be More Theoretical

As someone trained as a biologist first who discovered an aptitude for theoretical work, it seems to me that good theoretical biology needs to contribute new theory. It needs to be more than modeling and simulation. I...

Thought

Thoughtfulness shared through writing

When it comes to my continuing thoughts about trying to be a writer, I get frustrated. On the one hand, part of me wants to give writing a try. On the other hand, another part of me sees it as an additional task that ...

Thought

Three enemies

Confusion, fear, and pride are not just obstacles to thought. They are obstacles to love. Any intellectual vocation worth having has to learn how to recognize all three.

Thought

Truth, not commentary

God gave me my writing so that I might tell the truth. But the world does not need more opinions. The world needs balm, salve, and a dressing for the wound. There will be no laser-focused critique of contemporary cult...

Thought

Two mountains

Four decades ago, with a friend and a notebook, I looked across quiet waters to an awe-inspiring peak. While my friend read Jane Eyre, I thought of Lyell’s Principles of Geology, the uniformity of natural law, and the...

Thought

What do I think I know?

I desire to understand things deeply, to clarify, to know the truth that will set me free. Understanding seems more fitting than discovery. It applies to the personal as well as the impersonal, to my humanistic intere...

Thought

What is writing to be?

What is writing to be, when there are already too many words? When the best words have been stolen by propaganda and meanings have been changed beyond recognition? When being a Christian has become a matter of winning?

Thought

What to write and the question of voice

I’ve heard it said, “Write the book that you would wish to read.” Of those books that have meant a lot to me, the first that comes to mind is Indiscrete Thoughts by Gian-Carlo Rota. I liked the connections with phenom...

Thought

Writing and open questions

Writing for me is not so much about making an argument, as it is about identifying open questions, seeking answers and understanding. The process of writing itself focuses the mind, and answers eventually come.

Thought

Writing and the research process

Part of my problem with writing is the continual demand to create, to be novel and fresh. In my experience of the research process, I cannot force scientific and mathematical ideas to emerge. Perhaps, in the same way,...

Voice

Albert Schweitzer

With the spirit of the age I am in complete disagreement, because it is filled with a disdain for thinking. –Albert Schweitzer, Out of My Life and Thought

Voice

Arn Anderson

I’m both a professor and student, because if you are no longer a student, you don’t have the right to call yourself a professor. –Arn Anderson, as quoted in The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin

Voice

Baruch Spinoza

Men believe themselves to be free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined. –Baruch Spinoza, Ethics, in Works of Spinoza (New York: Dover,...

Voice

Blaise Pascal

The heart has reasons which reason does not know. –Blaise Pascal, Pensees, section iv. 277.

Voice

Blaise Pascal on skepticism

It is not certain that all is uncertain—to the glory of skepticism. –Blaise Pascal (paraphrased)

Voice

Charles Whitfield, Healing the Child Within

One reason is that the mother herself is so impoverished and needy that she uses her infant to satisfy her own unmet needs. This is an amazing thing about infants. They can sense that the mother is needy, and can even...

Voice

Czesław Miłosz, The Captive Mind

Who can gaze indifferently at the suffering of people whose only sin was that they blocked the path of historical processes? To lull his conscience he resorts to the thesis that a reactionary cannot be a good man. Who...

Voice

DARPA Broad Agency Announcement

The Defense Sciences Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of new simulation capabilities to test the accuracy and robustness of causal...

Voice

David Carradine

If you cannot be a poet, be the poem. –David Carradine

Voice

Earl Biddle

It is to be expected that scientific explanations of human behavior in purely materialistic terms will be met by opposition, not only by the clergy, but by everyone concerned about religion. –Earl Biddle, Integration ...

Voice

Edward O. Wilson

The final decisive edge enjoyed by scientific naturalism will come from its capacity to explain traditional religion, its chief competitor, as a wholly material phenomena. –Edward O. Wilson, On Human Nature. Harvard U...

Voice

For this very reason, make every effort…

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, m...

Voice

Frederick Buechner

The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s hunger meet. –Frederick Buechner

Voice

Frederick Douglass

Between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference–so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure and holy is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corr...

Voice

Friedrich Nietzsche

At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a...

Voice

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Imagine: inside, in the nerves, in the head—that is, these nerves are there in the brain… (damn them!) there are sort of little tails, the little tails of those nerves, and as soon as they begin quivering… that is, y...

Voice

Gabriel Chevallier, Fear

“Most rules lie, yet lies are less shocking, less corrosive than the chosen, cultivated ignorance that Chevallier addresses here. This ignorance denies the reality of anything which provokes pity. It is an error to th...

Voice

Groucho Marx

Man does not control his own fate. The women in his life do that for him. –Groucho Marx

Voice

H. L. Mencken

“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” –H. L. Mencken

Voice

Hope

Faith, wherever it develops into hope, causes not rest but unrest, not patience but impatience. It does not calm the unquiet heart, but is itself this unquiet heart in man. Those who hope in Christ can no longer put u...

Voice

Human nature is not a machine

Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it. –John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Voice

Instead of beauty, branding

Instead of fragrance there will be a stench; instead of a sash, a rope; instead of well-dressed hair, baldness; instead of fine clothing, sackcloth; instead of beauty, branding. –Isaiah 3:24 (NIV)

Voice

Isaiah 50:4

The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. [ESV] The Lo...

Voice

It prevents existence

The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided: … such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence. –Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Henry Reeve

Voice

Its own reward

Knowledge is capable of being its own end. … any kind of knowledge, if it be really such, is its own reward. –John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University

Voice

J.P. Stern on Canetti

To conclude that Canetti’s use [in his book Crowd’s and Power] of the method of philosophical anthropology is uncritical – that is, unphilosophical – is to advert to the fact that at no point in the book does he (or i...

Voice

Johann von Goethe

If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise. –Johann von Goethe

Voice

John 16:33

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. –John 16:33, NIV

Voice

John Mayer, Split Screen Sadness

‘Cause I can’t wait to figure out what’s wrong with me So I can say this is the way that I used to be –John Mayer, Split Screen Sadness

Voice

Karl Barth, The Gift of Freedom

The Gift of Freedom. Foundation of Evangelical Ethics. It is my task to discuss the gift of freedom, and to do so with the foundation of evangelical ethics in view. Let me anticipate the solution to the problem inhere...

Voice

Karl Ove Knausgård, Wolves of Eternity

“Why are you reading when you don’t have to?” Sevoshka would often say to me [Alevtina] whenever I sat down with a book on some subject or other that was completely alien to him. “You were the sort who actually liked ...

Voice

Kerry Ann Rockquemore, Monday Motivator

Most importantly, we must develop our own internal system of value, measures of quality, and definition of success. Unless you have a clear sense of your value as a scholar, your criteria for “good work,” and your def...

Voice

Leszek Kołakowski

The patterns are always the same: the great socialist revolution consists, first of all, in giving us privileges, titles and power for our political opinions and in destroying the old reactionary academic values like ...

Voice

Masters and servants

It is the allowing machines to be our masters and not our servants that so injures the beauty of life nowadays. –William Morris, How We Live and How We Might Live

Voice

Men have become the tools of their tools

Men have become the tools of their tools. –Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Voice

Mircea Cărtărescu

In capitalism, man exploits man. In communism, it’s the other way around. –Mircea Cărtărescu, Solenoid

Voice

Miroslav Krleža, On the Edge of Reason

Had I not come to a turn in this account that could be described as a fatal one, according to a mysterious law of human folly, in all probability I would have spent my whole life overwhelmed by my own contradictions: ...

Voice

Oscar Wilde, De Profundis

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. –Oscar Wilde, De Profundis, 1905

Voice

Poincaré

To doubt everything or to believe everything are equally good solutions–both dispense with the necessity of reflection. –Poincaré

Voice

Proverbs 19:21–23

What a man desires is unfailing love. Better to be poor than a liar. –Proverbs 19:21–23

Voice

Proverbs 25:2

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings. –Proverbs 25:2, NIV

Voice

Psalm 65

Praise awaits you, our God, in Zion; to you our vows will be fulfilled. You who answer prayer, to you all people will come. When we were overwhelmed by sins, you forgave our transgressions. You answer us with awesome ...

Voice

Rainer Maria Rilke

How surely gravity’s law, strong as an ocean current, takes hold of the smallest thing and pulls it toward the heart of the world. Each thing– each stone, blossom, child– is held in place. Only we, in our arrogance, p...

Voice

Reinhold Niebuhr

The vantage point from which man judges his insignificance is a rather significant vantage point. –Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man (paraphrased, probably)

Voice

René Descartes

Thanks be to God, I did not find myself in a condition which obliged me to make a merchandise of science for the improvement of my fortune. –René Descartes

Voice

Restless heart

Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee. –Saint Augustine, Confessions, trans. E. B. Pusey

Voice

Rick Rubin

The best work is the work you are excited about. The outcome is not up to us. Give some attention to each seed, regardless of what you believe its potential may be, and look for a beautiful response. If you have just ...

Voice

Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. Of course, you must know that every letter of yours will always give me pleasure. Please be indulgent with the answer, which may often leave you empty-handed. I...

Voice

Roland Barthes

I don’t share the traditional belief that there’s a divorce in nature between the objectivity of the scientist and the subjectivity of the writer, as if the former were endowed with a “freedom” and the latter with a “...

Voice

Ronald Beiner

Looking back on that conversation today, I cannot help but wonder whether my more hopeful view of the discipline and its intellectual achievements was just a conceit of youth, and whether it can survive more rigorous ...

Voice

Rush Holt

This election is said to have been about rejecting the political establishment. We cannot let that mean rejecting established facts. We hope that President Trump will be more grounded in specific facts than was candid...

Voice

Seeing Jesus

Our first responsibility is to be revived ourselves, and to have a testimony that we have come to the end of our struggle and that we have found Jesus himself as all we need. –Seeing Jesus

Voice

Spiritual growth…

Spiritual growth is the result of coming face to face with our own situation, feeling the brunt of our own puzzlement, recognizing no recipe will apply completely, and then trusting God as we make unsure responses.

Voice

Spoke into the wheel

“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.” –Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Voice

Starfish story

A man walking down the beach sees a young boy picking up something and gently tossing it into the ocean. When the man asks what he’s doing, the boy replies that he’s tossing starfish back into the ocean to catch the h...

Voice

Stellan Ohlsson

The psychology of thinking encounters several perennial problems… Perennial problems are rarely solved. Instead, they serve as loci for the accumulation of knowledge. Each generation of researchers superimpose their o...

Voice

Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

Look in your own heart. Unless I’m crazy, right now a still small voice is piping up, telling you as it has ten thousand times the calling that is yours and yours alone. You know it. No one has to tell you. And unless...

Voice

Timothy Snyder

Post-truth is pre-fascism. –Timothy Snyder

Voice

To weigh and consider

Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. –Francis Bacon, Of Studies

Voice

Tripp York

The hope of the Christian is to worship God in such a way that attracts others to God. –Tripp York

Voice

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

Imaginatively she is of the highest significance, practically she is completely insignificant. –Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, p. 44.

Voice

William Barclay

When we speak for Christ we must speak as if Christ is listening – as indeed he is. –William Barclay

Voice

William James

As for me, my bed is made: I am against bigness and greatness in all their forms, and with the invisible molecular forces that work from individual to individual, stealing through the crannies of the world like so man...