truth is everywhere.

so was i reminded yesterday when i happened upon a tweet from @Buddha_Insights (via damien echols):

https://twitter.com/Buddha_Insights/statuses/295849109473091584

file this tweet in the category, “shots fired”. in this case, (whether it’s intentional or not) the shots flew in the direction of christianity. and, quite frankly, the shots are fair. (as well as this one, but that’s another post altogether.)

my humble little blog serves as a repository of snapshots of my life at any given time. i’m glad to have it. of course, the yin to that yang is that i’m also slightly horrified every so often when i look back and see something that i so strongly believed at a sepcific time and i, well, don’t so much now (to say the least). fortunately, it’s only on display for the few thousand unique visitors each month that stumble upon this blog.

i can’t imagine what it’s like to have spent 20+ years sharing my theologies and bearing my soul to hundreds of thousands (or millions?) of people. that’s exactly what derek webb has done since he began writing songs as a part of the grassroots christian band caedmon’s call and continued for nearly a decade as a solo artist. so does derek, like myself, ever look back with any contrition about past songs or specific lyrics.

ray rivera, pastor and founder of latino pastoral action center in the bronx, once told a story about a conversation he had with a midwestern pastor who insisted rivera was too political. so rivera asked, “pastor, tell me how your local schools are.” the pastor replied, “they’re top notch. some of the best in our state.” rivera continued, “tell me about your local hospitals.” “they’re excellent,” replied the pastor. “tell me about your libraries.” the pastor said, “our community is very proud of them.” rivera paused before responding, “pastor, in our community, our schools are failing, our hospitals are woefully behind and our libraries are full of hand-me-down books that are falling apart. because we love our neighbors, we’ve become their advocates for a better a community. if anything, we risk not being political enough.”

since departing mars hill church in grand rapids and relocating to los angeles, we’ve heard very little from rob bell. that changed yesterday afternoon when bell, with no fanfare or forewarning, tweeted a link to a new video.

i stumbled across an incredible video featuring a response (transcript below) given by astrophysicist dr. neil degrasse tyson to the question, what is the most astounding fact about the universe?. someone took his reponse and added some particularly compelling video. you can watch it here:

if you’ve never seen hbo’s boardwalk empire, some have described it as the sopranos set during prohibition. while that might be an overly simple description, it does offer a bit of insight into the nature of the show: gangsters, deceit, betrayal and violence all executed perfectly by a brilliant script, visionary directors and an inspired cast.

while the entire season (the show’s second) has been a good one, this past sunday’s episode was particularly powerful. a lot of major plot twists and character insights were contained in this episode, but it was a simple dialogue that most caught my attention.

i can’t decide if it’s a blessing or curse that i tend to see the world through a theological lens. either way, it leads to some unexpected (and often humorous to most people, i’m sure) observations about the nature of both god and people.

so it was on last night’s midseason finale of amc’s the walking dead. in a nutshell, for those who have never watched it, the show is about a group of people trying to save themselves in a world that has been overtaken with zombies (a.k.a. walkers). generally, i dislike the entire zombie genre, but this show is much more about the interpersonal dynamics of the group. which brings me to last night’s deeply theological episode.