Sunday Morning Musings

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Boys Who Stood Up Before Their Time

Those of you who read my musing last year about Lonesome Dove might remember Ricky Schroder playing Newt — a boy who became a man at an age when he should still have been clothed in childhood innocence. Schroder also starred in Too Young to Die, the story of Calvin Graham, a 12-year-old boy who lied about his age, enlisted in the Navy, and fought in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal.

Every war this country has ever fought has had its Woodrow Calls — the steady, seasoned men who knew the cost before the first shot was fired. But right beside them, almost hidden in the dust-up, there have always been others like Newt — the boys who stepped forward before their time.

[Editor's Note: Apologies to author and readers. I received this on Sunday and thought I posted it, but obviously didn't. }

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The Garden and the Wilderness

In this musing, I am tracing C.S. Lewis's journey to Christianity. A seamless movement from the "backyard" of myth and longing, into the vast untamed country of revelation, without ever scorning the garden that first awakened his wonder. Lewis never saw pagan myths as rivals to Christianity, but as good dreams sent by God to a waiting world.

"The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history." — C.S. Lewis.

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Tools That Outrun the Soul

The Age of Artificial Intelligence

There has never been a tool that did not reveal the heart of the one who held it. A hammer in the hand of a craftsman becomes a cradle. A hammer in the hand of a tyrant becomes a weapon. The hammer never changed — only the heart did. But now we stand in an age where the tools grow faster than the hearts that wield them. This has always been the story of humanity: the tool is innocent; the heart is not.

For most of human history, our inventions moved at the pace of our wisdom. A plow. A wheel. A printing press. Each one gave us time to grow into its consequences. Each one allowed the soul to catch up. Not anymore. Technology now grows like wildfire in an old-growth forest — cumulative, accelerating, unrestrained. It does not wait for the soul. It does not pause for conscience. It does not ask whether the hands that will wield it are steady, or clean, or good.

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Stairway to Heaven

Genesis 28:10 — "And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it."

I've been thinking lately about dimensions — not just the ones physicists sketch on chalkboards, but the ones we live in without noticing. In school, they taught us about a four‑dimensional universe: length, width, height, and time woven together like threads in a cosmic loom. But the more I ponder it, the more I suspect these four dimensions are only the ground floor of a much larger house.

We begin life in something like a one‑dimensional line. As infants, our world is nothing but the next need, the next cry, the next comfort. Forward and backward. Hunger and fullness. Light and dark. A single line of experience with no depth.

"On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross, the emblem of suffering and shame. And I love that old cross where the dearest and best, for a world of lost sinners was slain."

Today, that hill, that cross, that sacrifice seems nearer than ever. Thousands of years and miles have not changed our fallen nature one tiny bit — it has only spread its dominion into every corner of our world.

Regarding the conflict we are engaged in against Iran, I would like to offer some insight into who is on the side of justice and God's will, because it certainly is not the iron-fisted Iranian government or the radical Islamist clerics that control it.

Spiritual judgment is God's alone. Only He sees the heart, knows the whole story, and understands the hidden motives, wounds, temptations, and pressures that shape a soul. Only He can separate the sinner from the sin without destroying the person. This is why Jesus warns us not to judge the soul—we can't see deep enough, know enough, or love enough. But humility doesn't mean doing nothing.

Justice in the physical realm is our responsibility. If it's ignored, if wrongdoing goes unchecked, if cruelty is left to run free, chaos takes over and evil wins. This isn't a contradiction—it's a moral division of labor. God judges the soul. We judge the deed. God holds eternity; we protect the vulnerable. God sees the heart; we uphold the law. We can pray for the souls of tyrants while also resisting them, saying both, "Christ died for these men" and "They must be stopped." That's not a contradiction—it's Christian realism.

Why Both Are Necessary

If we try to take God's role—judging the soul—we become self‑righteous, vindictive, and blind to our own darkness. If we ignore our role—pursuing justice—we become passive, cowardly, and complicit in suffering. But when we hold both together, we live as humans were meant to: resisting evil without becoming it; pursuing justice without losing mercy; fighting darkness without letting it poison the soul. This balance keeps the world from chaos, the heart from pride, and the soul light enough to rise. It's the kind of soul that returns home like rain to the earth—having resisted evil, looked for the good, left judgment to God, and done justice on earth.

What we are doing in Iran is long overdue. Not only for the thousands of Americans and others who have been killed, maimed for life, or had their lives ruined by wars of attrition that never seem to end—it is also justice for the millions of Iranians who have suffered under the despotic rule of an ancient religion that is long overdue for reformation similar to what Europe went through in the 16th century. The hatred that these radicals have for Israel and America must be eradicated, or there will never be peace in the modern world.

This is "Christian realism" in action—resisting evil decisively while leaving the ultimate judgment to God. It's not vengeance; it's containment and potential liberation. The hatred toward Israel, America, and the West's values is baked into the regime's ideology, exported via proxies. Eradicating that requires weakening the structures that sustain it.

Pray for wisdom for leaders, protection for civilians (Iranian, Israeli, American, and others caught in the crossfire), and for hearts to turn—both oppressors and the oppressed. May justice prevail without descending into unchecked wrath, and may the vulnerable find relief. Guard the good, resist the destructive, and trust the deeper story to the One who sees all.

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A Rose is a Rose...

There once was a little bush that sprang up amongst a meadow full of weeds. Now, the weeds were not all noxious or ugly, but they were prolific and spread like wildfire in poor soil. Some had pretty flowers decorating their stems and leaves. However, the fruit of the flowers was often bitter, sour, and sometimes poisonous. Some had no fruit at all.

The little bush continued to grow despite the encroachment of the weeds that threatened to overwhelm it. It thrived not only because it was a hardy plant but also because it had some help.

The bush grew thorns and bark for protection, but even that was not enough to ward off every threat. But amazingly, every time it was crowded by weeds or attacked by parasites and disease, a hand from above came to the rescue.

"No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same...Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment."