The Thump Keg

During the early 90's there was great spiritual interest in Russia, and there were many opportunities. In the region of Moscow where I lived, I was given permission to lead lectures every evening in the local school building. Each night I would go through a chapter of Romans. During one of the first meetings, a young priest stood up and interrupted me. “Why did you come to Russia?” he demanded. “Do you think there is no Christianity in Russia?” Some others in the audience tried to quiet him and defended me. I replied, “Believers in America have been praying many years for the church in Russia. Now that the doors are open, everyone is eager to come and help. Sometimes we haven’t been wise in understanding how to do that. I don’t want to do anything to harm the church. I just want to help.” He then let me continue. Afterwards I invited him to my nearby apartment. Once inside my home, I suggested we read a chapter from the Gospels and discuss it. I placed an icon on my booksh

Everyone in the classroom was aware that the new girl was different. They had all grown up in the area around Charlottesville, a rather affluent area with Southern manners, rolling green countryside, country estates and horses. She moved here from a broken home in Washington, D.C. to live in Albemarle County with her grandmother. She wore a black, leather jacket with gang slogans stenciled across the back. Her language was crude and out of place. Most students ignored her. Once when I rearranged the seating, one of the boys refused to move where I assigned him. Later he told me privately that he refused because he didn’t want to sit next to a Negro. It was 1968. As time went on, the new girl’s sullenness began to soften. Her schoolwork improved. She began to smile and reflect enthusiasm in class. I attributed the change to the influence of living with her grandmother. Once when I asked a question, she excitedly raised her hand and said, “I know! I know!” One of the white boys rem

Whenever I would ask my grandfather about the war, he would clam up like a spy. Actually, he really was a spy. Grandma would then begin showing me his military photographs, how he learned the language, how he arrived in Germany and, of course, happily show off his medals. At the age of 12 I wanted to know what it was really like in the war. But Grandpa would only wave his hand at the TV, as if to say, watch “Seventeen Moments of Spring.” I would watch, be impressed, and then ask again, “But tell me something about you.” Silence. He drank habitually, like all of his war-time buddies from the front lines. And then it seemed he would begin to feel better. He would begin to smile and cut out paper swans for me. Apparently the port wine helped him for a while to forget what was terrible to remember. Then I, taking advantage of the moment, would ask him again about the war, and again I would not receive an intelligent answer. Jordan Petersen, a professor of psychology at the Universit

Current research in brain science indicates that life change rarely occurs as a result of logical thinking. Change occurs when information is processed in the part of the brain not accessible to conscious thought... popularly referred to as the right brain. Conscious, logical thought is sometimes referred to as left-brain function. It is sequential and slower than the processing speed of the right brain. These two types of mental processing complement each other. Each has its own advantages. I will use the popular terms of right brain and left brain to describe these mental processes, although the actual neurology is more complex than functions strictly located on the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Face recognition software in a computer must process a huge amount of data. But how does our brain recognize a face? We do not consciously analyze the light and dark areas of the image, but somehow we quickly recognize the image of a human being. We even may discern someth

Thoughts on Uniformitarianism Uniformitarianism , also known as the Doctrine of Uniformity, is the assumption that the same natural laws and processes that operate in the universe now have always operated in the universe in the past and apply everywhere.    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformitarianism Uniformitarianism , in geology, the doctrine suggesting that Earth's geologic processes acted in the same manner and with essentially the same intensity in the past as they do in the present and that such uniformity is sufficient to account for all geologic change.    https://www.britannica.com/science/uniformitarianism a bit of history Thanks to the pioneering work of researchers such as  William Smith , geologists in the early 1800s were able to swiftly organize rock formations into a single colossal record of Earth's history. Many geologists saw in this record a stormy epic, one in which our planet had been convulsed repeatedly by abrupt changes. Mountains