In the fall of 1968, I began watching members of the St. Louis table tennis club play in the auditorium of our church. I had never seen table tennis played at a high level so I was enthralled. Continue reading Playing Table Tennis →

Before applying to graduate school at the age of 30, I had spent almost eight years playing a lot of (relatively) high stakes poker. (I hesitate to publish this post—it reveals my youthful immaturity and recklessness. But at the urging of my son-in-law, I’ll publish it nonetheless.) Here is the story of my youthful playing poker. Continue reading Playing Poker →

British calendar, 1851, Metropolitan Museum of Art

There are many thoughts that pass through my mind in the course of a day or week.  Many necessitate a book-length analysis to do justice to them, but that I won’t do! Instead, let me briefly mention a few of the things that I have recently pondered. Continue reading Personal Reflections at the end of 2019 →

The above provides an allegory for throwing off religious crutches.

My last post reviewed Lewis Vaughn’s autobiographical, Star Map: A Journey of Faith, Doubt, and Meaning. Vaughn’s book describes his severe Southern Baptist upbringing, the doubts about religion that subsequently set in, Continue reading Outgrowing Religion →