Turning on TED
It was only 18 months ago that I publicly wrote that one of my deepest dreams was to…
The art and the agony of anticipation
My manager’s kindergarten-aged daughter is a brave little one: she willingly holds her arm out for the needle…
Internet trolls vs an unfair God
The internet troll is a fearsome creature. It is not unlike a werewolf in that it will go…
An awkward romance
About a month ago I heard a talk about how God made the first move with us and goes to crazy lengths to woo us. Yet framing my relationship with Jesus as an epic romance is a bit, well, off. Friend, yes. Father, yes. But this?
Made to wonder: string theory and the resurrection
What does string theory have to do with the Resurrection? What's the difference between wanderlust and "wonderlust" (is that even a thing?)? Why do adverb particles matter?
This Easter I really went down the rabbit hole ...
String theory and the Resurrection
I was listening to a podcast the other day, an interview with a physicist who was explaining the holographic principle. Based on string theory, one of the concepts is that our lived reality is two-dimensional data expressed in three dimensions. In other words, reality is a hologram.
It made me think about dimensions in general. If two dimensions can express three, and it's generally accepted that we inhabit four dimensions (the fourth being time), what would 5D* projection mean? Because I'm convinced the material world isn't all there is to existence.
As a person of faith, I believe we exist in more than four dimensions. But for most people - Christians, followers of other faiths and those of no faith alike - our active engagement in the fifth is limited.
This Easter I was reminded that the Resurrection invites us to walk beyond the four dimensions and live a bigger, richer reality.
Love and ashes
Happy Valentine’s Day! Happy Ash Wednesday! Not since 1945 have both occasions fallen on the same day. And…
Converse and convert
I stumbled upon an interesting website this week. In the wake of the failed plebiscite and planned postal…
Lavish Friday
Unconditional, eternal, lavish I was reading about how God loves us unconditionally, eternally and lavishly. Unconditional, I get…
The problem with American
Last week, on my flight from New York back to Sydney, I binge watched Season 1 of The Newsroom. It’s a series created by Aaron Sorkin, the guy behind The West Wing, with Jeff Daniels playing Will McAvoy, an anchorman on cable news.
In the opening scene of the series pilot, Will is on a panel with a Democrat and a Republican at a university, when a student asks the panel: “What makes America the greatest country in the world?”
The question triggers an epic and rousing outburst from Will, who dresses down both major political parties and rails about why America is no longer the greatest country on earth.
“But it could be”, he then says in softer tones.
That first season of The Newsroom aired in 2012, before Donald Trump ever campaigned for president, promising to “make America great again”.
Coincidence? I doubt it.
Re-entering the darkness
I wasn’t procrastinating – I actually wasn’t planning on ever reading the book. It was going to be one for the mantelpiece, to adorn the bookshelf. After all, I spent a year working for the organisation founded by the author, so I didn’t just know the content – I was living right amongst it.
It was a surprise, then, how much the opening chapters of The Locust Effect moved me. Two months back on board with International Justice Mission (IJM), now in Australia, and we’ve talked on a number of occasions about vicarious trauma. I’ve shared with my colleagues some of what I went through that year in Bolivia. They’ve shared about how advocating against cybersex trafficking has had a toxic personal effect on them.