I remember congratulating a young man on his first sermon. The topic was prayer and he did very well for his first effort. Responding to my compliment on his performance, he replied, “Thanks, but I couldn’t loose. Who’s not going to agree that prayer is important?”

Despite his motives for choosing a “safe” topic to address in his first sermon, the young man was right, who doesn’t agree that prayer is important? Prayer is a “given” in the Christian life. It is foundational to continuing spiritual growth, including learning about the Christian life in formal educational settings.

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A story is told about novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand, who, was once asked if she could summarize her philosophy of Objectivism while standing on one leg. She did, and her succinct statement of her philosophy in a nutshell is oft-quoted. Theories are complex, abstract, interlocking, and multifaceted by nature so it’s a challenge to make them accessible by putting them “in a nutshell.” And some might argue against the attempt to do so lest one run the risk of stripping from any theory its beauty and nuances. One danger here is that a lack of appreciation for nuance often is a short road the misunderstanding and ideological rigidity.

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In his controversial classic, Beyond Freedom and Dignity (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971), B.F. Skinner proposes a scientific model for the study of human behavior and challenges the traditional theory of man as a purposeful, autonomous being with personality traits, will, and emotions. He dismisses the metaphysical construct of “mind” as a motivator of behavior, limiting his analysis to what can be observed, and presents behavior as the product of the genetic endowment an individual has received from evolutionary processes and of his encounters with the external environment.

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A few weeks ago, during a visit to a local church, a deacon at that church cornered me and asked me one of those questions you know immediately is “loaded.” Loaded questions are tricky to respond to honestly given that you never know what local landmine you may be stepping on. One vague or misspoken reference and you may find yourself immediately recruited as an endorser of one or several anxious camps in an ideological battlefield you know nothing about.

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Americans love good fiction, says pollster George Barna, which seems to be a peculiar opening sentence for a report on his recent survey of what Americans believe about some familiar Bible stories – - including the virgin birth.  It’s not clear what Barna regards as fiction, but the subjects of his survey believe the story of the virgin birth to be literally true .  In fact, of the six stories included in his survey, this one was accepted as an accurate depiction of an historical event by three out of four adults.

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In To Know As We Are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey by Parker J. Palmer (San Francisco, CA: HarperOne, 1993), 160 pp, $13.95 ISBN-10: 0060664517), author, activist, teacher and nationally recognized educational expert, offers a new model for knowing, learning and teaching. He engages the reader in an exploration of how mind and heart can work together in seeking truth, pointing to education for whole persons, which includes not only cognitive learning but also emotional learning. He admits that he is searching for a “holistic way” of knowing which can be translated into practical ways to teach and to learn. He seeks to offer through his writing “a way of knowing and educating that might heal rather then wound us and our world” (Palmer, p. 2), the latter of which he posits conventional education has indeed done in objectifying people and things.

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One of my favorite and often-visited websites is that of the Project Gutenberg. There are over 20,000 free books (electronic texts) in the Project Gutenberg Online Book Catalog, a bibliophile’s dream! It’s been a great source of reading material for my very cool SONY Reader.

The good folks at Project Gutenberg have a nice collection of recommended Advent and Christmas readings. Most of these are short enough for a daily reading in addition to your daily lectionary readings.

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