Men as well as children have need of play—that is to say, of periods of activity having no purpose beyond present enjoyment. But if play is to serve its purpose, it must be possible to find pleasure and interest in matters not connected with work. — Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens (Man the Player). Reading Huizinga’s…
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Part II — Memory, Trauma, and Divine Purpose
We are vast warehouses of experience, yet we are only permitted to walk through a few small rooms of our own archive. This thought has consumed me lately. It drove me to do something unusual: I started researching whether others have grappled with the limits of human memory. As it turns out, we have been…
Memory, Trauma, and Divine Purpose — Part I
My physical therapist recently told me that our tissue retains a memory of every trauma it has ever suffered. If that is true, then my own body is a crowded archive of pains and memories. Yet, there is something deeply wondrous about this: we might consciously forget the falls, the blows, and the physical shocks…
Pure Thinking
As followers of The Hubbell Pew know, I believe the Sabbath is one of God’s greatest gifts to humanity. Left to our own devices, it is in our nature to run full bore every single day. Yet, while worship is central to the morning, the remainder of the day grants us the grace to unplug.…
A Reflection on Two Worlds
I’ve been giving something a lot of thought, and I still can’t quite get my arms around it. Maybe it is because of the weather, which—except for the lack of rain—has been wonderful this spring in North Carolina. Anyway, it seems for the most part we live in two worlds. It is much like these…