Essay
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“But, the reality is, I still feel like I haven’t lived up to my dad’s expectations. Or rather, I haven’t lived up to my own expectations that masquerade as the memory of my father.”
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I still wasn’t becoming who I wanted to be. Then it dawned on me, you become what you look at. So if I’m only looking at myself, my faults, my failures, my successes, I will just stay myself. I won’t actually grow. So I looked to Jesus and said “do your work.” Seeing my death…
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All of my feelings well up in my soul. All of my thoughts race through my mind. And more than ever in my life, I just want to call my dad.
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My boys smiled at me as I cried, and then proceeded to spin to the music while screaming at the top of their lungs. And, in that moment I tasted joy; joy unexplainable. A joy so deep and unexpected, it can only be explained as supernatural. I felt the presence of God in that very…
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Today is New Years Eve. The year 2020 is about to become 2021, again reminding us that time does not stand still. Time continues to move on. Through pandemics, through economic crises, through natural disasters, time doesn’t stop. Humans keep growing older, and the universe keeps slowly dying. 2020, to most, has made this truth…
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I remember Christ’s death on Good Friday, celebrate Christ’s resurrection with joy on Easter, then immediately go back to experiencing sorrow and pain by remembering my Father’s death. It is like reaching a beautiful mountain top only to have a storm roll in and quickly rush you off, having you descend in darkness and experience…
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“When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for the joy that a human being has been born into the world.” – John 16:21 In the creation story, God curses the human race for its sin…
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Photo Credit: Philippe Wojazer / Reuters Saturday morning my wife, Stephanie, and I with our friends and family celebrated the new life and coming birth of our twin sons, Abel James and August John Elliott. Gray clouds covered the sky, and a steady rain fell on the ground, a typical spring day in the South Puget…
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It is Saturday morning. With the sun gently peeking into our room, my wife and I simply lay in bed talking, dreaming about our present and future life. Where in the world will we visit? Where will we live? What will our hobbies be in five years? What jobs do we really want? What will…
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Today is my beautiful wife’s, Stephanie Augusta Elliott’s, birthday. The more I think about her and all of her amazing qualities and virtues, I realize that I value her birthday infinitely more than mine. For, birthdays are a celebration of an individual’s life, and I would much rather celebrate my wife’s life than my own.…
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I find myself writing on death quite frequently. Every year for the anniversary of my father’s death, I write a theological reflection and meditation on the concept and reality of human death. Death has always had a certain hold on me, and I have always had a certain contemplative fascination with it as both a…
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In moments of confusion and uncertainty, moments that cut to the heart and cause man to question the goodness of God, it is good that man seek God above all else. I often have to remind myself of this truth. Evil actions of men in this world such as the recent murders of Alton Sterling,…
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Peter Lawler stated in a recent article, “Philosophy is learning how to die, to get over obsessing about your personal significance. Being (existence) itself is not in our hands.” Lawler aligns himself with great thinkers such as Plato, Cicero, and Montaigne in believing that Philosophy has the purpose of preparing oneself to die. Shakespeare even…
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Luke 24:13-35 tells the story known as the Road to Emmaus. In this story, the recently risen Jesus Christ comes along two confused and saddened disciples, who are struggling with Christ’s recent crucifixion and subsequent death. In this account the disciples do not recognize who Jesus is, because their “eyes are restrained;” (Luke 24:16 NRSV) they…