By: Jennifer Eckert on February 3, 2024
In her 1985 hit song, We Don’t Need Another Hero, musician Tina Turner sang, “All we want is life beyond the Thunderdome.”[1] This anti-love song is about a woman who desperately yearned for “freedom beyond the ragged dystopia”[2] of her oppressed and loveless marriage. She finally sought and found independence and encouraged others to stand…
By: Jana Dluehosh on February 2, 2024
“What does the Lord Require of Me? But to do Justice, and to Love Mercy and to Walk Humbly with our God.” Micah 6:8 Kryptonite I have a weakness…an Achilles heel, and I’m willing to admit it today: I suck at arguing! I found myself on edge as I read Evangelization and Ideology: How to…
By: Noel Liemam on February 2, 2024
This book, “The Hero’s Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work,” has a very long ‘working-out’, or way of showing, or detailing of the stated point. I tried here and there within the chapters to pick up the points, but it takes me longer time therefore, I went to look for the summary and…
By: Elysse Burns on February 2, 2024
This week I had the privilege of visiting Chiang Mai, Thailand for a company retreat. Personally, I feel like I took my own Hero’s Journey just to get here from Mauritania. While in Thailand, I have participated in many sessions meant to encourage those of us working overseas. The teaching that most sparked my interest…
By: Dinka Utomo on February 1, 2024
Avoiding living in a false world may sound academic and detached from everyday concerns. But that assessment rapidly changes the moment someone or some group comes along and tries to conscript you into their ideological fantasy … You can run, you can submit, you can bloody your knuckles. Or you can craft a better argument…
By: Chad Warren on February 1, 2024
Are you a “Treky?” In the 1960s, the U.S. was deep into the space race, which created the perfect environment for the television series Star Trek to gain popularity and capture the imagination of a nation. I visited the Museum of Pop Culture several years ago in Seattle, WA. Most memorable for me was the Star…
By: Adam Harris on February 1, 2024
If vertical learning requires reading widely and hearing ideas that conflict with my own then Matthew Petrusek’s book, Evangelization and Ideology, helped me grow like a weed this week. Maybe that’s an over-exaggeration. There were times I thought, “Great point, I could see that”, then other times I thought: “Hmm, that seems condescending and a…
By: Todd E Henley on February 1, 2024
January 30, 2024, began the trial of a West Caln Police Officer. It’s a trial many of us who live in West Caln have been nervously waiting for. November 10, 2021, a black lady, Takeisha Landry made a left turn while stopped at a red light. Sergeant Tony Sparano approached her car after she stopped,…
By: Julie O'Hara on February 1, 2024
Facing the struggles of my doctoral journey thus far has led me to question why I even started and I felt shamed by my initial response. Had I really convinced my husband to accompany me on a three-year investment of time and money out of a twisted ego need to earn the title of ‘Doctor?’…
By: Mathieu Yuill on February 1, 2024
I was on a sales call today with a company that sells email automation and social advertising. I like meeting new people so I always make sure to learn a little bit about the sales person I’m speaking with and today was no different. This salesperson was in Louisiana and when he learned I was…
By: Kari on February 1, 2024
The last thing I wanted to read for our assignments this week was concerning the imaginative world of mythology. I have always been one to choose more realistic literature. My childhood imagination would take me into made-up worlds, but my reading choices did not. I preferred Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie over…
By: Daren Jaime on February 1, 2024
He was my hero, and I was always unashamed in celebrating his victories, letting anyone who would hear me talk about an ordinary guy who could do extraordinary things. I remember my heart beating and blood pressure rising as Clark Kent would leave his job at the Daily Planet to fend off Lex Luthor…
By: Akwese on February 1, 2024
As I delved into this week’s readings, I couldn’t help but think about the patterns I’d seen among leaders that brought me to this doctoral program. No matter what initial goal or challenge they wanted to work on, at its core was a need to be seen, heard, and accepted. Despite the diversity of individuals…
By: Ryan Thorson on February 1, 2024
As I read the Campbell’s book this week (even though it was a reread from my English Literature days in my undergraduate studies) it was hard not to see connections in my everyday life as a husband, father and pastor. Last night in particular our older kids and my wife and I gathered around the…
By: Nancy Blackman on February 1, 2024
I don’t consider myself a hero, but this book reminds me of some people who have been heroes in my life. I think about my eldest aunt on my mother’s side (이모 – imo – pronounced “eemo”). For the longest time, Korean women were not allowed to get an education beyond 8th grade, but my…
By: Jenny Dooley on February 1, 2024
Most political conflicts have little to do with politics. They are rooted in more fundamental disputes about moral values, moral knowledge, the definition of the human being, and even metaphysics.[1] Matthew Petrusek Evangelization and Ideology: How to Understand and Respond to the Political Culture, by Matthew R. Petrusek, is not a quick how to guide…
By: Russell Chun on February 1, 2024
Jasné body na obzore, Bright Spots on the Horizon (Slovakian) Introduction Part 1: What my peers are saying Part 2: Impact on my NPO Epilogue Introduction – Ukrainian War, Israeli War, and war with Iran? Syria? Yemen? The world’s crisis’s have been impinging on my mind. The Bosnian war, Iraq 1 and Iraq 2 …
By: Pam Lau on January 31, 2024
“Most socio-political disagreements are not about different laws or policies; rather, they are about competing theories of justice (morality and applied morality), knowledge, human nature, and the nature of existence”.[1] Last week, while working in Phoenix, Arizona, I attended a large mega church in Scottsdale for their Sunday morning worship. The woman sitting next to…
By: Diane Tuttle on January 31, 2024
My takeaways from this week’s reading feel complexed. At first, I thought Campbell’s book was a study of the similarities of world religions and I was excited to dive into it. However, while A Hero With A Thousand Faces was thought provoking, I bristled at what appeared to be reducing the life, death, resurrection, and…
By: Cathy Glei on January 31, 2024
It was said of Author Matthew R. Petrusek, “Within the Church, Petrusek takes a “back to basic” approach to catechesis in an effort to recover an orthodox, pastorally-nimble yet intellectually-robust approach to faith formation and evangelization, using Scripture, the Catechism, and the great minds of the Church’s tradition as a foundation. His ultimate goal is…
