Jason Albertson

In Terry Pratchett's novel, Equal Rites , there's a scene that illustrates a thread I keep seeing in his writing.  An older woman, a mentor-figure, is trying to teach a young girl how to use magic effectively. One of the things she teaches the girl to do is "borrow" the mind of an animal, like an eagle or bear, to use the animal like a periscope - see what they can see, sense what they can sense.  The older woman warns the girl not to take control of the animal's mind, only to ride alongside it, but the girl ignores her warning. She seizes the mind of an eagle and flies away with a triumphant screech while her human body falls into a coma. But because she doesn't know the limitations of the eagle's body, it gets tired and falls to the earth on a remote mountain. But the older woman tracks the eagle, brings it home and warms it again. Patiently she coaxes the girl's consciousness out of the eagle and back into her human body, and it passes from a coma i

In his book, Art + Faith , Makoto Fujimura describes the Garden of Eden as a “discovery zone” God prepared for Adam and Eve. God filled the garden with every kind of tree (Gen. 2:8-9). He brought to the garden all the beasts and birds (Gen. 2:19-20). God introduced the materials of the earth to humans, and then He expected them to make something of those materials by naming and cultivating them (Gen. 2:15; 2:19). And we get hints in Gen. 2 of fabulous and exotic materials God placed beneath the soil for Adam and Eve and their children to eventually explore, excavate, discover, refine and employ (Gen. 2:11-12). Fujimura wonders, “are we to assume that they would have begun the work of building the city of God in some way, to use the materials, even if the Fall had not occurred?” Consider God’s actions in Eden as an analogy for education. God… Introduces unfamiliar material and Provides opportunities for creative, meaningful work (naming, cultivating) that results in Growth in knowledge

Integrating grief into worship is hard, but there are times when it's important for a Christian community to figure out how. 1. I've seen grief verbally acknowledged from a pulpit, then someone leading the service asked the participants to set it aside to enter into worship. This seems better than not acknowledging the grief, but I think it conveys the impression that grief is insignificant, or that the show must go on—that the participants are less important than the ceremony of worship. 2. I've seen someone invite participants to enter into triumphant worship with their grief, to express their faith in the middle of the circumstances. This seems like a better response because it invites participants to meditate on how their worship relates to their grief. It opens up opportunities to recognize Jesus as the resurrection and the life (John 11:23-27). The drawback of 2 is that it can tend toward papering-over grief rather than integrating it. We are often so uncomfortable

New Year’s Day is just another midwinter day, but it marks the progress of time and prompts us to reflect—maybe on the passing year, maybe on hopes and expectations for the coming year.  In our New Year’s reflections, I think it can be easy for us to partake of a belief that is unhelpful to our souls, but fills the air Americans breathe: we must make something ultimate of the new year .  I’m struggling to find words for the belief I’m trying to describe, but I hope you can feel what I mean. Though most people don’t talk about this belief in these terms, it can feel like a new year impresses on us a burden that could be described as … saving ourselves or producing something profoundly meaningful or  achieving some purity or righteousness,  … especially by means of self-discipline or work. That’s a belief that flows naturally from the American culture’s secular, pluralistic civic religion. It isn’t polite to talk publicly about truth, goodness or beauty, but there still seems to be somet

I used to think suffering comes from God to sculpt away the pieces that aren't part of the design. But I keep seeing pieces falling with scraps of the pattern  still pinned to the material. So I read James again.  He didn't say God sent suffering for good.  He said every suffering could bring about good. I used to think God does only ever all that will bring the greatest good. But I've seen good seeds become dry shoots in the wilderness— burning bushes that are consumed.  Every day, chances to bring about good soar over the plate strike after strike. And I guess, I don't really know what you do, God? Like, what do you do? Mary didn't even get the guest room.  This is the part where I'm supposed to say "Yet I will hope in the God of my salvation." I want to. Tonight, all I've got is "What are you waiting for?" I'm grateful that you notice when the sparrow falls but the sparrow's still broken, right? You noticed Adam and Eve, but t

I took a chance on an audiobook this year.  It’s been a year without much slack, and leisure reading has been hard to come by, so I’ve been listening to more audiobooks while I work around the house. This one was a recommendation from Hoopla , and I gave it a try: Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov. From the description, I thought it would be a funky story about time travel. Instead, it was a tragic and often funny story about how Alzheimer’s disease affects individuals and societies, and I think it has something to say about this week’s kerfuffle over the US Senate’s dress code. Time Shelter Time Shelter is a Bulgarian novel, published in 2020 in Bulgarian then translated into English in 2022. The narrator’s relationship with a mysterious friend, Gaustine, is the core around which the story develops.  Gaustine pulls the narrator into a business venture: he is developing a clinic for patients with Alzheimer’s disease. He wants to provide them with the greatest possible comfort in thei