It’s Friday the 13th. “No more bets,” says the croupier before spinning the 21 mm ivory ball around the roulette wheel. The man with the $50,000 bet on black watches on greedily as his bleached-white teeth pounce on his nubby fingernails. The ball yawns and eventually kneels into a pocket. The roulette dealer calls it:…
Two opposing themes stood out to me about Christopher Nolan’s cinematic portrayal of The Odyssey (and The Aeneid): trickery and hospitality. “Zeus’s Law” or the social contract of hospitality when broken was a severe offense against the gods. In the movie, we see both hosts and strangers violating this sacred Greek code—what’s supposed to be…
A poem about my experience as an immigrant boy in America. Faith, Hope, and Love “The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.” Even in the shadows, Faith, which is the shimmer of things that’ve long lost their luster, still slices like lightning. “So let’s go all in.” …
After 20 years of planning, researching, writing, and editing, SALVADOR is finally finished and available to purchase and enjoy at https://a.co/d/0d62xt6p! SALVADOR was originally inspired by two books: The Jesus I Never Knew and The Da Vinci Code. I loved how Philip Yancey highlighted the humanity of Christ in the former, and I loved how…
Category: Art, Beauty, Literature, Morality, Nature, Philosophy, Poetry, Psychology, Science and Religion, Short Stories, Spiritual Formation, Suffering, Theology
My book on the topic of imaginative apologetics, hence the title–IMAGINATIVE Apologetics–is finally here. The book has over 50 poems, 170 prose (aphorisms to articles), and 20 short stories. Topics include but are not limited to Beauty, Faith, Love, Philosophy, Redemption, Suffering, Wisdom, Discipleship, Ethics, Psychology, Science and Faith, Theology, Worldviews… Here are a few…
EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE HAPPY. From moms to mailmen. From artists to athletes. From monks to models. From preachers to politicians. Philosopher Blaise Pascal is unequivocally correct when he says, “All men seek happiness. This is without exception.”[1] But experience tells us that not everyone is happy, that happiness eludes us. Why is that? In…
“Ultimately, it’s not whether ‘God is dead.’ But whether a good God is dead.”
I was inspired by Steinbeck’s East of Eden to write this flash fiction. Caleb waits in the shadows. Murder is on his heart. Aaron won’t go as far as premeditated murder but he has no problem beating up an old man and taking back the money he lost in tonight’s poker game. The old man,…
When I was younger, I lived life to the extreme and for the extremes. I had no overarching purpose, so I assumed one from the abundant possibilities of my anxious lifestyle. I quickly moved from one place to another, one girl to another, one job to another. I was on the fast track to the…
But the dark side of therapy I’m referring to goes beyond sexual impropriety to include the more elusive ethos of breaking the boundary of personal values.