Suffering
I recently spoke with a younger friend who is battling cancer, which has included a great deal of pain. We had not spoken for a while, and I was struck by the change in his voice when he answered the phone [...]
In the 2012 film The Perks of Being a Wallflower, based on a novel by Stephen Chbosky, a high school first-year student named Charlie grapples with the suffering of those around him [...]
A crushed spirit dries up the bones. (Prov. 17:22) He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree. (1 Pet. 2:24) Technology’s triumph over space, its power to entertain and distract, its promise of enabling us to construct not only our own virtual identities but our own realities […]
“Watchman! Watchman! What of the night?
Watchman! What of the night?”
The morning comes, always comes
But comes through the darkest night! […]
Google “last meals” and you’ll discover an online fascination with what people chose to eat when they knew it would be the last time they got to do so. […]
“I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:5) The book of Job has been described as beautiful because of its artful structure and elegant poetry—but not often because of its stark display of terrible […]
Beautiful. We hear the word so frequently that we give it little thought, applying it to everything from a Rembrandt masterpiece to a child’s first scribbles. Yet beauty is so profound that, alongside goodness and truth, it is widely regarded as one of the great transcendentals, and an entire branch of philosophy—aesthetics—is devoted to its […]
On my last visit to New York, I went to the Museum of Modern Art to see The Scream, a 36” x 28.9” drawing in pastel by Edvard Munch (1863–1944) on loan from a private collector. It is one of four versions the artist made of the famous subject: a genderless figure, standing on a […]
A Song for the Lonely Alberto Anguzza is a musician, not a medical professional. Nevertheless, many identified him as a sort of hero in the early days of the global COVID-19 pandemic. While Italy was on strict lockdown, Anguzza, a trumpeter, went out onto the balcony of his apartment in Trapano, Sicily, and offered a […]
Every semester at some point or another, I gaze out at my students and tell them this: Sloth is the sin of your generation. Then, of course, I ask them what sloth means. The usual retort is “laziness.” But the sin of acedia—or, in its most common idiom, sloth—is not, as we commonly hear, merely […]
God often uses hard providences to bring forth spiritual growth in the hearts and lives of his children. As the apostle Paul famously promised to followers of Jesus, “All things work together for good” (Rom. 8:28)—and by “all things,” Paul meant all things, including hard providences. Sometimes that “all” is quite turbulent and God’s children […]
Growing up in evangelical circles, I often witnessed the odd Christian ritual of sharing your life verse. The life verse was some particular passage from Scripture that people grasped onto as a special word from the Lord for them. It would sometimes, then, help shape their lives as they sought to live according to its command […]
Very often we celebrate the soteriological advancements of the Reformation for the church and individual Christians alike. We remember with gratitude the soothing, Christ-exalting doctrine of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Could we ever remember and laud this rediscovery of the biblical gospel too much? One underrated advancement that people […]
It was my turn to preach in chapel. I was given John 11:1–44 at the beginning of the semester, and since, in God’s providence, it was just two days after my father finally died after a long year of tremendous suffering, we held a memorial service in conjunction with chapel that day. I had long […]
In the 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the main character Joel Barish (played by Jim Carrey) meets a quirky, blue-haired woman named Clementine (Kate Winslet) on a train, and after a short period of mutual flirtation, they begin an emotionally intense relationship. Then one day Joel receives a crushing revelation about Clementine […]
