It's been about 4 years or more since I took to blogging. I viewed it eventually as too time-consuming and not worthwhile. I have since rediscovered some of the better aspects of blogging and writing what can be read and commented on by others. Feedback can also be given by those who are interested and have another perspective. Similarly, those who have no background in what I might write have the opportunity to learn not only from myself, but from those who might agree or disagree with me.
I hope to do some original writing, but mostly I look forward to responding to certain works, podcasts, blogs, debates, and news. If you disagree, please be civil, but also realize I don't like to come to rash or extreme conclusions without a reason. Hopefully the reason is truly rational and informed by my faith. As a brief introduction to the content of what I hope to follow for many years, I should properly introduce myself and my interests, as well as explain the unique title of this blog.
If you skulk around the internet you should find a little blog called "Mother Hubbard's Cupboard." As I have grown and (hopefully) matured, I am beginning to think my tongue-in-cheek title was ironic. I now think that I wrote about much I was ignorant on and had some luxuries I no longer have. You would discover by reading that blog that I was a Lutheran (Missouri Synod) science student turned seminarian. You would also discover that I politically leaned right of center on most things, and that occasionally I could lose my temper and rant about quite stupid things. No longer! Behold, a form of a cocoon has been sloughed off, and now I stand before you as an Orthodox graduate student (yep...still racking up student debt) who attends an ELCA seminary and who has survived one masters degree. I still lean right of center (sorry, that's probably gotten stronger over the years as I've seen more of life), but I tend to have lost any tact I might have had. In one class I was compared to another student who took a surgical knife to an issue when they disagreed with it...I was told I took sledgehammers and just went to town.
The title represents new shifts in my life, as well as my focus and final goals. I am a theologian who has been in two Christian denominations. I have studied and earned degrees in the sciences, philosophy, and theology. I have worked in research and development, teaching, cooking, geotechnical engineering, and insurance. I have loved and I have lost. I have academic interests in the practical implications to modern philosophy of science and systematic theology from the thought of certain church fathers and through the lens of Scripture. Yeah, that's 3-4 different areas of study. At heart, I synthesize and I want to understand how the system works down to the level of the trees within the forest...if I see just the forest or just the trees, then I don't see the whole picture. The end result of this unique intellectual and vocational journey is that I think about multiple areas and at times might seem to exhibit a form of mental ADD where I can't focus on just one thing until I can bring the numerous trails together into one cohesive whole...hence, my mind in dispersion, and the title of this blog.
To close, I am looking for active blogs or individuals to have conversation with, and certain debates to analyze and discuss. I am predominantly a theologian at heart, so while I might reference certain aspects of my financial background or engineering experiences, I want all things to go back to theology. The mindset of this blog is simple and can be summed up in some of the final words of another Lutheran turned Orthodox Christian, Jaroslav Pelikan: If Christ rose from the dead, nothing else matters. If Christ did not rise from the dead, nothing else matters.
