Sunday Morning Musings

Reflections on Liberty and Faith

Once upon a time, long ago, there existed a people conceived in liberty. They believed their freedom came not from kings or parliaments but from natural rights endowed by nature's God. They looked upon the intricate order of the world — intelligible and morally charged — and recognized that such order implied a Lawgiver. And because they believed in a divine moral order, they believed human government must be accountable to something higher than human will.

Such as these were the early American colonists who attempted, with all the limitations of fallen men, to craft a government worthy of the self-evident truths stamped upon the human soul. They compromised where they had to, argued where they must, and built a constitutional framework that could endure the storms of history. One of their greatest insights was the amendment process — slow, deliberate, resistant to fads — a safeguard against the passions of the moment and the ambitions of the powerful.

If I did not know in my heart of hearts that this nation was founded on Christian principles — and that a vibrant Christian culture spread like wildfire throughout the British colonies — I would approach this upcoming Fourth of July with sadness and hopelessness. But I do know American history. I know the Bible and the New Testament of Jesus Christ. And I know the Christian dedication that the Founders shared, even as they differed on how best to apply that faith. It is precisely this foundation that kept us from following the tragic path of the French Revolution — a path that descended into anarchy, chaos, and bloodshed, only to be arrested by the rise of Napoleon as dictator.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again

There comes a moment in the life of every nation when the clock strikes a note that cannot be ignored. A moment when the noise of daily life falls away, and people must ask themselves the oldest question in Scripture: “What time is it?” Not the hour on the clock, but the hour in history. I believe we have reached such a moment.

Black Holes, Möbius Time, and Resurrection

On quiet mornings like this, when the New Mexico sky is still deciding whether to be night or day, my thoughts drift toward the deepest mysteries — the ones that lie at the edge of science and the threshold of eternity. Lately, I've been pondering black holes, those cosmic abysses where gravity grows so fierce that even light cannot escape. Scientists still confess a "sobering" truth: they do not know what truly lies at the center of a black hole, nor how information survives the plunge into darkness.

Physics insists that information cannot be destroyed. Black holes appear to destroy it. And so the paradox stands. But perhaps the paradox is not a wall — but a doorway.

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"To Sleep, Perchance to Dream"

Something is wrong. I remember waking up this morning in a land where the sun never seems to fully rise or set. The sky is always gray — not the soft gray of morning, nor the peaceful gray of evening, but a chilly, restless twilight that blurs every image. Shadows have no direction. Voices have no source. And my own footsteps sound as though they belong to someone else.

Was it just this morning, or have I always lived in the twilight of a world without contrast, without clarity, without meaning? A world without a path?

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The Heart Before the Mind

C.S. Lewis once warned that modern education was producing “men without chests.” He meant that we were raising people whose reason was trained, and whose appetites were indulged, but whose affections — the seat of courage, conscience, and ordered love — were left malnourished. Lewis argued that the chest is the bridge between the head and the belly, the place where a person learns to love what is good and resist what is base. And when that bridge collapses, society collapses with it.

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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.