What should be left behind?

There is no spiritual or political scenario where you can abandon Christian virtue for the sake of the alleged greater good, and if a Christian politician abandons Christian virtue, then Christian believers should abandon him or her.

                                                                        -David French

A Little Read

 

Je vous préviens, que si vous ne me dites pas que nous avons la guerre, si vous vous permettez encore de pallier toutes les infamies, toutes les atrocités de cet Antichrist (ma parole, J’y crois)—je ne vous connais plus, vous n’êtes plus mon ami.

So starts Tolstoy's War and Peace. Ironically in French, left that way in the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation.* Character Anna Pavlovna jumps right in complaining about Napoleon, who is going to attempt the invasion of Russia, and lose nearly one million soldiers in that futile endeavor.

*a wonderful work of translation! Try to get the out-of-print hardback edition. Why would anyone want a book that is 1250 pages long as paperback? Unless you didn't want to actually read it. Or like I was in 1989: much too broke to afford anything but. I still have that old book. It is two volumes now, having broken in half, with yellow pages flying when I take it off the shelf to look at my underlines.

The Meaning of Medicine

"To meet people at the intersection of fear and hope and to walk with them, however briefly, with honesty and care is the true meaning of medicine." 

                                                                                    -Santoshi Billakota, MD

Renee

 

Ad hoc memorial to Renee Good, killed in Minneapolis 

Jan 7, 2026, during protest of Immigragtion and Customs 

Enforcement (ICE) activity. 

 

RENEE

 

Good to find God

The video doesn’t show

Her soul escaping up

She left us in the snow

Stained red

Good gone forever

 

The soul of the goon

Can’t escape

Sold to Lucifer 

For sign-up boon

And promises of Greatness

 

Nothing new here

A people lost their way

Shiny demons leer 

Pied piper collecting children

Renee, Poem by Paul Bunge, January 8, 2025 

Where is my heart this Thanksgiving?

 

(James Tissot, The Pharisee and The Tax Collector)

Is it with the tax collector, who sees his sin and falls on his knees before you? (Luke 18)

 

Is my heart with David, full of thanks and praise for your glory? (Psalm 100)

 

Is it stubborn and independent, ignoring God and others and searching only for comfort and distraction?  (Jeremiah 17)

 

Is it satisfied in my achievements, both material and spiritual? With gratitude yes, but looking down on those whose choices and achievements are less impressive?  (Luke 18)

 

Going off of Jesus’ leper story, my heart has a one in ten chance of actually showing thanks. Not good odds, which shows the core problem.  (Luke 17)

 

My heart cannot see you, God. It cannot seek you, it cannot hold you. For it is a stone. (Ezekiel 36)

 

Before I can thank you, before I can praise you without hypocrisy, I must know your miracle to make my heart flesh.

Provision

“Where do babies come from?” is a classic children’s question. One could call this profound, simple, and humorous question essential to childhood itself. 

 

As children, perhaps the question of origins is prompted only by curiosity. But as we get older, our search to know where things come from is essential to our being, our relationships, our jobs, and sometimes our survival.  Our lives are spent answering the questions of how do we ensure food, shelter, money, relationships, leisure, time, medical care; and, if we are well off, a fancy car, swimming pool, vacations, and a long, enjoyable retirement. 

“And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory,” says St. Paul in his letter to the Philippians (4:19).

 

This is one of many passages where the Bible re-frames our perpetual search for how to get things. God is the source of everything, from food and money to security and shelter, and, yes, even babies. Now, Paul is not dumb: he is not contradicting someone who explains how milk comes from cows, a paycheck is needed to pay the rent, and babies are a complex matter indeed. In fact, in this very chapter, Paul is talking about how one group of people supports another group. But Paul is saying that ultimately, God is the Provider. And not just ultimately, but practically and immediately. 

 

This acknowledgement that there is more than simple cause and effect to explain things, and that those who are limited to cause and effect are spiritually malnourished, is the origin of a plethora of religious practices, from all sorts of sacrifices, to Halal meats, to Thanksgiving day, to prayers before a meal. 

 

We typically find ourselves in one of two situations when it comes to provisions: either we have enough, or we don’t. The Bible reflects this, describing us either in need or in abundance. And we are called in both situations to come to God and see the reality that God is the provider. The Bible repeatedly describes God as the one who sees our needs. If we are hungry, thirsty, poor, weak, sick, or otherwise in need, the Bible says to look to the Lord who sees. To seek those things from him. To plead your case with him. If we have abundance; if we are full, satisfied, healthy, happy, and blessed with good friends and a loving family, we are called to pause and say “thank you” to God. In both situations, the call is the same: look to God. See him as the Provider. 

 

The Bible is full of case after case where one is tempted to look elsewhere when times are rough and things are scarce. Stealing, cheating, and taking shortcuts are described multiple times with the problematic results. But as the prodigal son story shows us (Luke 15), the main problem that needed solving was not that the son had wasted all his money and was longing to eat pig slop, but that he was separated from God by his bad choices, and God’s love was enough to restore the brokenness. 

 

When there is abundance, the Bible describes how we tend to ignore God who provided and run off to indulge ourselves without a second thought. Jesus cured ten people in one day of their debilitating diseases, and only one came to thank him. 

 

One cannot talk about God providing without noting the frustration and despair we may experience when he does not provide, or does not provide in the way we had hoped. The whole ancient book of Job wrestles with this question. It affirms that there is great pain and misery in this world, and there are no simple answers. One thing it does point out is that we have limited perspectives as humans, and it once again calls us to look to God, especially when we don’t have all the answers.

 

God wants us to have what we need. He wants us to enjoy food, health, love, friendships, and success. But most of all, he wants to be connected with us, as a loving father cares for his children, never stops talking about them, and is proud of their every accomplishment. In this broken world, where we cannot see God with our eyes, and our experience may suggest to us that God doesn’t care, he does see and he does care. In want and need and sickness and loss and death, knock on God’s door because he can provide. In abundance and good times, do not forget it is God who provides.  

 

 

The Holies

 

The Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls (Rome)

The final section of Paul’s letter to the Philippians (Phil 4:21-23) contains some greetings:

“Greet every saint in Christ Jesus” 

“The brethren with me greet you”

“All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar’s house”

This seems rather standard in a group letter: to send out vague greetings and blessings. But Paul is not satisfied with a normal “goodbye.” He adds religious language like “Jesus,” “saints,” and “brothers.”  Is he trying to make his goodbye contain a more religious tone? Like the written form of what would now be an emoji with a halo on top of a happy face? Or is Paul trying to say something important here about God and the identity of his friends? If we look at the words Paul uses, that may help us know more of what he is getting at.

When talking about his Christian friends in Rome, several nameless, some who visit, and some who usually work there in what serves as Paul’s house arrest, Paul calls them “saints.” This word may be confusing, so let’s look back to where Paul got the word he used in Greek, “hagios.” One interesting place we find this word is in Paul’s Bible, the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures known as the Septuagint. 

Isaiah 6 is a well-known passage, where Isaiah sees a vision of God in his magnificence filling the temple, with heavenly beings flying and calling out: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts.” Isaiah is overwhelmed with the glory and responds in worship, submission, and awe. 

Paul’s Greek Bible uses the word “hagios” for “holy” in Isaiah 6. The word that describes that amazing, set-apart, pure, refined, perfect, incomprehensible, overwhelming, infinitely good nature of God. And when Paul describes his friends, he uses that same word: hagios. Your Bible probably is similar to mine, and translates it “saint.” But don’t be fooled, this is not something that someone grew into, something that these people tried really hard to achieve, or the like. This was something Paul knew in them, saw in them, realized in them. That God himself, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, by his Holy Spirit, entered these people, and Paul saw them as amazing, set-apart, pure, refined, perfect, incomprehensible, overwhelming, with that infinitely good nature of God. Despite their lowly state financially, emotionally, physically, morally, or otherwise, Paul called them holy with the angelic word that described God. He said, “The HOLIES greet you!” 

On this All Saints Day, 2025 (All Holies Day?), let us remember the amazing gift we have in ourselves and in each other, all those who have faith in Jesus. The Holy of God that He chose to put in us when he sent his son to this world. May we see this today and every day.

Silhouette

de Paul Bunge, Sept 2025

 

Je voix les arbres à silhouette

Le monde est different

Mon place la même exactement

Qui a fait le changement encore?

 

Les palmiers tropicaux se profilent

Dans le brefs instants 

Le soleil laisse son art par le papier

Rapidement comme il s'en va

 

S’attander longtemps, sapins du Nord

En le croustillant du matin

Est’il possible que je cherche plus de temps

Avec les années qui deviennent moins?

 

Enfin Dieu m’a donné

Et tout le monde bien sûr

L’illustration de sa gloire

Par les changements des arbres

A Wow from Science

If you have lost the sense of amazement at the way the world is and how God made everything to be discovered and enjoyed and fathomed, and you have lost your "wow," you might look at this paper from the New England Journal of Medicine (looks like you can see it for free if you make an account with them). From the microscopic to the light-years, there are amazing discoveries all the time, which remind us that God is a creative creator who loves it when his children figure something out. And that the things we see every day are so much more amazing than we know and feel. 

If the science is challenging to digest, my everyday doctor's interpretation is as follows: 

 Researchers previously viewed a whole category of protein segments as overly simplistic and of little use in the body, disdainfully labelling them "Intrinsically disordered protein regions." However, further studies have revealed that these segments are very useful indeed and not at all disordered. Rather than having a singular shape, they fold into functional structures depending on their environment, serving many important roles in the body. With simple repeated units, they make superstructures that we could not live without. Imagine a kind of simple-looking metal that, if you pile it up in a city, forms itself into a skyscraper. Or if you dump it in a field, turns into a plow. And if you carry a little of it on your walk and it starts raining, an umbrella appears. That is what several of these chemical chains do in your body, depending on where they find themselves. And we had no idea until Dr. Gorlich and Dr. McKnight watched and listened and wrote and taught and went to conferences and sat at benches pouring chemicals back and forth year after year and discovered what was happening. 

Truly Solomon was correct when he said: "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, to search out a matter is the glory of kings."  (Prov 25:2) Paul B

Reference: Tanja Mittag, "Surprisingly Complex Assemblies from Low-Complexity Domains," NEJM, Sept 11, 20205, DOI: 10.1056/NEJMcibr2509676

Truth

 

I appreciate this Wikipedia summary:

Truth or verity is the property of being in accord with fact or reality. In everyday language, it is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as beliefs, propositions, and declarative sentences. True statements are usually held to be the opposite of false statements. The concept of truth is discussed and debated in various contexts, including philosophy, art, theology, law, and science. Most human activities depend upon the concept, where its nature as a concept is assumed rather than being a subject of discussion, including journalism and everyday life. 

Thinking and Responding

(Christ and the Woman of Samaria at the Well, 1640)

Art can be a way of thinking, especially when the thoughts cannot keep up with the input. When the words and the theories don't fit the experience. You know you want to say something, but you can't even think it properly.

Many people feel that in the current American experience. I know I do. 

I especially appreciate Jon Guerra, whose art (song, poetry) has captured and coalesced some of my swirling ideas. He is a thoughtful Christian artist wrestling with the words of Jesus as well as the culture and politics of today. Thank you, Jon!

Some of Jon's Songs: 

The American Gospel  (Spotify)  (Youtube Music)

Citizens  (Spotify)  (Youtube Music)

In the Beginning Was Love  (Spotify)  (Youtube Music)

Nothing to Say to the New York Times  (Spotify)  (Youtube Music)

And Russell Moore's podcast interview with Jon is also very good: (Russel Moore's site)   (Youtube Music)

Standing Up

 Standing up to the abuse of power is inherently difficult. It can also be inspiring. People who do so often look back proudly on their actions and are justly celebrated for it after a crisis has passed. But crises usually do not end on their own. Resolving them requires courage and action.

-NYT editorial board

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/06/opinion/trump-law-firms-universities.html