Eavesdropping in the Areopagus

A Commentary on Faith, Science, Culture, and Ideas

Richard Jorgensen

Richard Jorgensen
Birthday
December 14
Bio
Eavesdropping in the what...???: "They spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas" describes the philosophers who invited the Apostle Paul to address them in the Areopagus in Athens. (Acts 17:21) Some scholars say the Areopagus was a sort of philosophical convocation, others that it had the authority of an Athenian municipal court. For the purposes of this blog, it is where faith meets the world, and the world of ideas. Richard Jorgensen is a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and has served parishes in Minnesota and Alaska. His current passions are the intersection of faith and science, the lives of parents and children, and the poetry of R.S. Thomas. He is the author of "Reading With Dad," published by Tristan Publishing.

MY RECENT POSTS

MY RECENT COMMENTS

Richard Jorgensen's Links

New list
MAY 28, 2012 10:38AM

Nothing Doing

Much of the argument made by the so-called new atheists is actually against the church and religion; they ironically offer little material proof of the non-existence of God. (Christopher Hitchen’s book God is Not Great would more accurately have been titled Religion is Not Great./… Read full post »
Post the first comment
JANUARY 3, 2012 10:02AM

The Tide's Pendulum Truth

…I have been made free
by the tide’s pendulum truth
that the heart that is low now
will be at the full tomorrow.
                                     ~R.S. Thomas


All of man’s problems com… Read full post »
Post the first comment
DECEMBER 22, 2011 6:20PM

RAGS AND TATTERS: SOME ROUGH LINES AT CHRISTMAS

Many preachers are confronted with a kind of awe at the great texts of Christmas and Easter, saying to ourselves, "What more can I say about so profound a story?" For a number of years my response to this has been to attempt a Christmas sermon in verse. I offer this… Read full post »
Post the first comment
NOVEMBER 27, 2011 6:22PM

Playing Scrabble in the Multiverse: Your Move

My friend Warren and I have a running Scrabble game going – on our iPhones. He’s in Texas, I’m in Minnesota. On a lazy Saturday we might finish a game in less than an hour; more often a game stretches out for a day-and-a-half or so, with intermittent play wound into… Read full post »
1 Comments
SEPTEMBER 30, 2011 11:18PM

High Lonesome

This town is so lonely it’ll make you old before your time;
Let me take you in my arms, hold your body close to mine…
                                                &n… Read full post »
Post the first comment
JULY 27, 2011 12:13AM

"What the F---?!"

Let your 'Yes' be 'Yes' and your 'No' be 'No'; anything more than this comes from the evil one. ~ Jesus, in Matthew 5:37
I heard my Dad swear (curse) just once. It was the classic hitting-his-thumb-with-a-hammer, “Dammit!” I was about ten years old. The fact that the oath came readily
… Read full post »
1 Comments
JULY 15, 2011 4:07PM

My Taxes: Stewardship or Selfishness

They asked Jesus, "Teacher, ...is it lawful for us to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?" But he perceived their craftiness and said to them, "Show me a denarius. Whose head and whose title does it bear?" They said, "The emperor’s." He said to them, "Then give to the emperor the things… Read full post »
3 Comments
JULY 11, 2011 4:01PM

Screen Time and Face Time: An Interim Report

 I just wanted to stand up close,
shoulder to shoulder, heart to heart
with this, my friend. ~Gerhard Frost


Caryl and I recently spent a week with my sisters and their husbands at the  remote mountain cabin we share – our annual work week and “partnership meeting.” A/… Read full post »
Post the first comment
JUNE 22, 2011 6:25PM

The Everyman Review

When I was in 10th grade I was cast as Rip Van Winkle in the school play. At the time I sported a flat-top haircut – the same post-war style my father wore. (I had some of that gel glop that I used to flatten it down when the center started to… Read full post »
Post the first comment
APRIL 25, 2011 1:27PM

Girls And Boys

Little play soldiers, if only you knew
what kind of battles are waiting for you.
                                    &nbs… Read full post »
1 Comments
MARCH 30, 2011 11:50AM

What's The Good Word, Preacher?

"...One of the shaman's jobs was ensuring that solar eclipses would be temporary. Nice work if you can get it." ~Robert Wright, The Evolution of God

It has occurred to me—with a combination of humility, seriousness, and not a little amusement—that I am the village shaman. (Perhaps I… Read full post »
Post the first comment
Editor’s Pick
MARCH 22, 2011 5:57PM

In Lent, As Facebook Fades From Memory... Sort Of

For two or three years, when our children were in junior and senior high, our family gave up TV for Lent.* Although it wasn’t their idea, our daughters went along with Dad’s scheme without too much persuasion. We put the television set in a closet, so there was no evidence of… Read full post »
5 Comments
MARCH 19, 2011 11:48AM

Those Wacky Bloopers -- And A Cautionary Tale

About once a year someone sends me one of those collections of “church bulletin bloopers,” and they actually make me laugh. Some of the perennial favorites:
The sermon this morning: "Jesus Walks on the Water."
The sermon tonight: "Searching for Jesus."
The Rector will preach his farewell m… Read full post »
2 Comments
MARCH 14, 2011 7:24PM

Thoughts Occasioned By Re-Stocking My Library
To begin with, my title is just a bit pretentious. It’s not as though I have a collection like Thomas Jefferson’s, which he donated to re-stock the Library of Congress after the conflagration of the War of 1812. I had some ceiling damage in my study, and needed… Read full post »
1 Comments
MARCH 5, 2011 1:59PM

A Library, A Box Of Books, And A Kindle

Huron library  I am grateful that my parents, my teachers, and the phonics-heavy “Alice and Jerry” series in first grade taught me how to read. Beyond these seminal reflections, I hold in memory two distinct episodes of what were, without exaggeration, life-changing experiences of th… Read full post »
2 Comments
MARCH 1, 2011 7:14PM

The First Art?

potsIII  
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to/
… Read full post »
2 Comments
FEBRUARY 22, 2011 6:00PM

Good On Ya, Ian Tyson


ianI have two portraits hanging on the wall of my study. One is my confirmation pastor, the other is Ian Tyson.
 
Ian and Sylvia were there at the creation (a certain kind of creation) with Dylan, Baez, and the others in Greenwich Village. Ian confesses that Dylan’s… Read full post »
2 Comments
FEBRUARY 13, 2011 5:15PM

Were You A Bully?

I recall reading a while back about a study that found that bullies enjoy being bullies. This conclusion ran counter to the perception of the bully as a miserable kid whose anti-social behavior is a cry for help. I have a feeling that the label probably encapsulates both types. And then… Read full post »
Post the first comment
FEBRUARY 1, 2011 8:29PM

Lady Godiva's Gift: Coventry Cathedral



To be “cathedraled out” is a cliché of tourism. I have not yet reached that point (but then again I am not that well-traveled). My continued interest in touring churches is connected to my conviction that the greatest work of art in the history of the western world i
… Read full post »
Post the first comment
JANUARY 26, 2011 9:45AM

Not Teaching To The Test But Testing To Teach

Recently, I was part of a conversation in which a respected high-level educator gave the opinion that standardized tests, had “made better teachers of our teachers.” She was being somewhat ironic, because her context was that she was speaking against No Child Left Behind and its mandated… Read full post »
2 Comments
JANUARY 14, 2011 12:45AM

The Local

You bring forth wine to gladden the human heart… (Psalm 104)

A recent Salon.com piece offers a slide show of “Literary Watering Holes.” I was surprised to discover that Caryl and I have actually been to three of the thirteen pubs, bars, and cafes featured: The Eagle/… Read full post »
Post the first comment
DECEMBER 31, 2010 3:30PM

Twenty Hours A Week?

A friend in another part of the country recently told me that he and his wife had been unexpectedly pleased by their pastor’s Christmas sermon. It was unexpected because they had been concerned of late that his preaching was consistently a mixture of thin soup and “avuncular rambles.&rdqu… Read full post »
2 Comments
DECEMBER 28, 2010 1:23PM

Talking Heads

 It is as though we are singing to each other all day long.
        ~ Poet Robert Pinsky, describing the musicality of everyday speech.


The topic of our annual synodical pastors conference (yawwwn… c’mon, stay with me) a few years ago was The New Technolog… Read full post »
Post the first comment
DECEMBER 23, 2010 12:33PM

A Friend Request From Grandpa

I have, of late, had a recurring vision. It is of an old man in a remote cottage, at his desk with a ham radio, sending messages into the night to his fellow radio operators. Except, I think, it is not a ham radio, but a computer, and he’s writing on… Read full post »
Post the first comment
DECEMBER 18, 2010 11:44AM

Two Poems For Christmas

Christmas reflections that press against the normal cheer of the season, from two poets who left us in the last decade.

First, from the bleak, sere, but ultimately faith-haunted R. S. Thomas:

THE COMING

And God held in his hand
A small globe. Look, he said.
The son looked. Far off,
As through water, he saw/… Read full post »
Post the first comment
1 2 3 Next → Last ⇒