Admittedly, there are many things I don't understand. Today I received an email from the good folks at Meetup.com that informed me there are still people who play Dungeons and Dragons. Back when the game first came out, people so struggled to distinguish the game from reality that they would kill themselves believing they could…
Funny how Original Sin, a dismal doctrine that suddenly appeared from the quill of Augustine in the fourth century as he tried to explain away his own compulsive sexual behavior, really is a lot more about original blame. Even today, humans seem obsessed with guilt and blame. From mass shootings to weather events to viruses,…
Research is valuable. Anyone who would attempt to draw meaningful conclusions about anything without researching their subject thoroughly is on a fool's errand. However, with apologies to Brene Brown, data ain't all there is. Data is what we can measure, what is quantifiable, what can be seen, and it is a huge part of our…
Americans tend to view getting ahead as acquiring more stuff. Houses, cars, furniture, appliances, vacation homes, boats, motorcycles, and more define where we believe we stand measured against other people. As Roxy and I were taking our walk today we met two little boys and their mother. The boys asked if they could pet Roxy,…
The Puritan streak that remains deeply embedded in American culture would have you believe that morality and your genitals are intimately connected. The resulting attitudes are perhaps among the most unhealthy ones possible. They lead us to see the physical as bad, as somehow distinct from the spiritual and the holy. This view has caused…
I was listening to a podcast today in which a group of four spiritual leaders in a particular tradition were discussing a scandal that hit their tradition a couple of years ago. Who they are and what there tradition is are really unimportant because I believe there is a larger trend at work in this…
Seriously? What would make us think such a thing was even possible? Who would choose a name like that, a name that implies that truth no longer exists? Of course it means that in our world today many people believe that opinion matters more than truth. I reject that notion! I reject the idea that…
My wife laughed when she saw the title of this post. She knows that my number one pet peeve is when a store rearranges its shelves. I've reflected on this, and determined that there are two reasons it irritates me. The first is that it takes me longer to find what I came to buy.…
A Bridge Too Far is a World War II movie about an Allied offensive that tried, as the title implies, to go a bit too far. Released in 1977, I loved this movie - but I probably wasn't aware of all of the reasons I loved it. Elliott Gould was definitely not one of the…
I know I have written about this before, but since the whole world apparently doesn't follow my blog so it needs to be covered again. Please share this freely, it is so very important... If you know someone who is suffering for any reason and they tell you about it, there are some things you should…
Craig Bergland 