As a teenager, I was watching a foreign film on Showcase in the middle of the night and was rewarded with a simple message delivered in subtitles from a Catholic priest.
The essence of the priest’s sermon can be summed up in one line: “Christianity is not an ethic, but a lifestyle.”
When I was checking my Kindle to see if a book had become available in this format, Don Piper’s book, 90 Minutes in Heaven, came up as suggested reading.
Since it seemed like a great value and I like reading about case studies involving NDEs, I decided to give it a chance.
My teacher gave us this assignment for real. It was called A Day in the Life of a 4th Grader. I handed it in for real. But this is the real one. The one I gave my teacher had nice things in it. This one not so much.
On one particularly hot, lazy summer afternoon, my wife complained that she was bored. After numerous sighs, I finally helped her pass the time by placing one of my favorite books, “Stages on Life’s Way,” by Soren Kierkegaard, in her hands to keep her occupied. After all, it is her life to live, and I can only offer her tools to making the most of it.
One offers brain particles all over the interior of a car, the other a drawn out, bloody journey to the cross.
One is viewed as gratuitous violence, while the other is praised for portraying the anguish of the Savior.
Let’s face it, Pulp Fiction and The Passion of the Christ rival each other in brutality. However, I left the one movie feeling like I had witnessed a miracle while leaving the other feeling like the extreme torture and suffering were imposed on me.
I’ve maintained for a long time that men need to hold each other accountable, at least to a certain degree. A few months ago I was on the receiving end of some firm advice and since then I’ve taken the time to digest the experience.
It was a late Saturday afternoon–gray and overcast, the roads still shiny after a light drizzle–and my wife and I were making a last second trip to the grocery store.
After a long day in the office, I walked into the house to find my wife waiting for me with her hand on her hip.
“Hey beautyterrific,” I said with forced, friendly enthusiasm.
Jenna just glared at me.
“Oh no,” I thought. “It’s going to be one of those nights.”
When I averted my gaze to kick off my shoes, a heavy object hit me in the side of the head, nearly taking me off my feet. It was the copy of “Stage of Life’s Way” I had lent to her.
Spell-Binding Sunset
After finishing Dostoevsky’s “The Devils” again, I was struck by how sad Stavrogin’s decision made me despite the atrocities he committed; and I also found myself thinking about spell-binding sunsets.
Whenever I find myself awed by the brilliant colors of a setting sky, two scenarios take place: I either enter into a mode of appreciation and become distracted from my life; or I experience deep, untapped other-worldly emotions en route to a moment of transcendence.
I woke up beckoned. But to what? At the time I knew not “what” and yet there was a stirring within me—a desire to succumb to my unquestioning, absurd obedience to a feeling I could barely comprehend. Full of desire, I hopped in my car with no object or direction or plan. It was as if my past was before me, behind me, and under me while I tried to find a place where I could be alone in the most solitary sense that alone could be.
When it came to writing the book “A Dog’s Religion,” I thought about my subject for three or four months before I started to even make notes. The inspiration for the book came when I was attending a church in Warren Ohio.