Random Cogitations

Some random cogitations, not particularly related....

1) Moving is brutal. It just drains the life out of you and that lifeblood, having been drained, doesn't fully return for a while, until you get acclimated to the new environment, etc. That period of recovery may be 1 month, 1 year, or longer if it ever happens. It feels like a death and resurrection of sorts and seems to only get more painful as you get older.

2) Blogging is beautiful, well....at least, much of the time. For me, it has provided a salutary occasion for a little reflective critical distance each day. I interject my daily journey often with statements like, "I should blog about this!". This is good and sharpening. When I stop and focus on some aspect of my life and thought, with an eye to later recapturing it via this quasi e-journal, the contours of Christ's work in me become clearer I think. I walk a little more wisely when I do this.

3) Seminary can be a time of unruly intellectual ambition. This is not necessarily the fault of the seminary. It is the nature of the beast. The academy is a place of high level cognition among other things. So, people possessed of an intellectual/cognitive disposition are susceptible to the native idolatries endemic to academic seminary life. It is in this connection that the gracious testimony and classroom example of professors like Dr. Richard Gaffin, provided a valuable constraint on my unwieldy mental aims. He exemplified 'humble orthodoxy' before I ever heard that phrase. And even when his more precisionistic proclivities (commendably & ardently applied in the pursuit to not 'go beyond what is written' I might add) rubbed up against my own creative right-brained orientation, his manner invited me in. I saw Jesus in that man. I've been reminded of this as I've perused reviews & comments of his latest book.

4) Tim Keller is special. Hearing him preach the gospel from Mark 12 this past Sunday evening, I was struck again with his God given ability to expose the legal scrupulosity of the human heart and prescribe just how the work of Jesus, when applied, contravenes the legal frame at every turn. I got a fresh taste, yea....a drenching of the grace that is in the gospel. The everlasting surprise of hearing the good news is seldom more real than when I hear Dr. Keller.

5) Tiger Woods is a freak of the gene pool. period. Anyone who goes 14-0 (?) when he has a share of the lead (at least) entering into the final day of a PGA tournament is breathing something other than the oxygen down here. How can a human have that level of consistency and focus?

6) Moving is brutal!