What does it look like to cultivate a theology of the senses?

We live in a world of experience, and this is a core aspect of our faith. It’s not that faith is on one side, with everyday experiences on the other. These actually go together. Within our daily lives, there are many touch points: the food we eat, the music we listen to, the people we meet, and the nature we encounter.

I hope my book conveys the idea that the world, and our lives within it, are crammed with heaven. Heavenly activity doesn’t just occur during transcendent moments, like seeing the northern lights or hearing a beautiful concert. Even amid the mundane, we can encounter God’s presence. And this isn’t a matter of doing something new so much as changing our perspective within the space we already occupy.

Enjoying God through our senses opens up a larger experience of the world and life in Christ. Scripture is full of the language of desire, and we are called to worship the Lord in the beauty of his holiness. Our intellect and senses work together toward the end of loving God with our whole hearts.

In the book, I argue that we love and desire beauty because beauty begins and ends in God, as manifested through the whole of creation. Ephesians 2 says that we are God’s “masterpiece” (v. 10, NLT). The Greek term, poiema, is associated with making, with creating. God is a creator, and to deny the value of creativity, of beautiful things, is actually to limit our vision of who God is and the works he might call us to do.

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Heaven isn't just something we feel we glimpse in those rare transcendent moments.

It's something we can attune ourselves to experiencing each ordinary day we're alive https://t.co/XIxdTKqZJ7

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) March 5, 2021

China upped the stakes in its tech race with the U.S. as leaders laid out plans to speed up development of advanced technologies from chips to artificial intelligence and quantum computing over five years.

In a draft economic blueprint unveiled at the country’s annual legislative gathering, officials said they would boost research and development spending by more than 7% annually over the five years to the end of 2025. That will account for a higher percentage of gross domestic product than in the previous five-year period.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said in a speech Friday that China will revise regulation and policies to support the flow of venture capital into startups, free up bank lending and extend tax incentives to encourage research and development.

Economists and industry analysts say China’s 14th five-year plan stands out for its emphasis on advanced technologies and innovation. It also included China’s vision for 2035, when the country expects to have “significant breakthroughs on core technologies and seeks to be among the most innovative nations globally.”

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China upped the stakes in its tech race with the U.S. as leaders laid out plans to speed up development of technologies such as chips, artificial intelligence and quantum computing over five years. https://t.co/vdTvYYC0kS

— WSJ China Real Time (@ChinaRealTime) March 8, 2021

As time has gone on, evidence has grown on one side of the equation: the harm being done to children by restricting their “circulation.” There is the well-documented fall-off in student academic performance at schools that have shifted to virtual learning, which, copious evidence now shows, is exacerbating racial and class divides in achievement. This toll has led a growing number of epidemiologists, pediatricians and other physicians to argue for reopening schools as broadly as possible, amid growing evidence that schools are not major venues for transmission of the virus.

As many of these experts have noted, the cost of restrictions on youth has gone beyond academics. The CDC found that the proportion of visits to the emergency room by adolescents between ages 12 and 17 that were mental-health-related increased 31% during the span of March to October 2020, compared with the same months in 2019. A study in the March 2021 issue of Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, of people aged 11 to 21 visiting emergency rooms found “significantly higher” rates of “suicidal ideation” during the first half of 2020 (compared to 2019), as well as higher rates of suicide attempts, though the actual number of suicides remained flat.

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The pandemic year has been brutal for young people. And it's been much tougher in some places than others. Here's my latest for @propublica, a story from a part of the country where the line between disruption and normalcy was drawn especially starkly. https://t.co/ECsTdsDHSp

— Alec MacGillis (@AlecMacGillis) March 8, 2021

Governor Henry McMaster and the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) announced today that South Carolina will advance to Phase 1b of the state’s COVID-19 vaccination plan beginning Monday, March 8.

“Throughout South Carolina’s vaccination efforts, our priority has been – and continues to be – saving lives,” said Gov. Henry McMaster. “In the month of February, South Carolina made tremendous progress on expanding access to vaccinations as the supply of vaccine increased. Our hospitals, pharmacies and healthcare providers became more nimble and efficient at getting shots in arms. Because of these successes, we’re now in a position to make the majority of South Carolinians eligible to receive the vaccine.”

“South Carolina remains focused on protecting the lives and health of South Carolinians from COVID-19,” said Dr. Edward Simmer, DHEC Director. “With the significant increase in vaccine supply and progress in vaccinating people in group 1a, front-line health care workers and those aged 65 and over, we are now ready to move to our next phase. Our state’s vaccine plan prioritizes those with greatest risk, while ensuring equal access to the vaccine for every South Carolinian aged 16 and over.”

South Carolina’s phased approach to its COVID-19 vaccine rollout recognizes the risk of hospitalization and death from COVID-19 increases with age, and people with certain medical conditions and occupations are at higher risk of exposure to the virus.

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BREAKING: SC will move to Phase 1b of the state’s COVID-19 vaccination plan beginning Mon, March 8. Eligible groups include anyone aged 55+, people with high-risk conditions, and frontline workers including school and child care staff.https://t.co/TZ1IhELyRq

— South Carolina First Steps (@SCFirstSteps) March 2, 2021

Gone! There was not really one obvious event which brought the pandemic into our reality. Not like when JFK was assassinated or 9/11. Everyone remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing when those tragedies occurred. Not so with the 2020 coronavirus.

It crept up on us. With some believing it was no more dangerous than the annual flu epidemic. Creeping, creeping, creeping and then it was gone. Not the virus but our freedoms!

Many of us were in shock for weeks trying to comprehend what was happening, others suffered the awful shock of losing a loved one to the virus. Some have created “bubbles” which include a few people, mostly family members, with whom they can have physical contact. Social distancing for social people? How awkward and uncomfortable. 14 day quarantined? A worldwide pandemic. Loss of our freedom to worship. How debilitating.

I am not sure when I first heard this phrase, but upon hearing it, it consumed my sequestered thoughts: “Why is God doing this for us?” A twist on the “Why is God doing this to us.” If you pause, as I have over these past months, you might be overwhelmed with appreciation for the answers you come up with….

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War broke out in August and in September 1914 Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy wrote these words in his parish magazine:

“I cannot say too strongly that I believe every able-bodied man ought to volunteer for service anywhere. Here ought to be no shirking of that duty.”

This from the man who would, before long be writing this, “Waste”:

“Waste of Muscle, waste of Brain,
Waste of Patience, waste of Pain,
Waste of Manhood, waste of Health,
Waste of Beauty, waste of Wealth,
Waste of Blood, and waste of Tears,
Waste of Youth’s most precious years,
Waste of ways the Saints have trod,
Waste of glory, Waste of God–War!”

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Happy Woodbine Willie Day. Today is the Church of England feast day of Leeds-born Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, priest and poet who acquired the nickname Woodbine Willie for his habit of giving cigarettes to wounded and dying WW1 soldiers. pic.twitter.com/klV33JHxtr

— History of Leeds (@rh0desy) March 8, 2021

Glorious God, we give thanks for high and holy things as well as the common things of earth: Awaken us to recognize thy presence in each other and in all creation, so that we, like Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, may love and magnify thee as the holy, undivided Trinity; who liveth and reigneth one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

8 March 1929: Rev Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy MC, aka “Woodbine Willie”, dies at 17 Abercromby Square, Liverpool: pic.twitter.com/KOMXTN6dg3

— Allan_D (@allanholloway) March 8, 2016

O almighty Father, giver of every good and perfect gift, who hast made the light of thy truth to shine in our hearts: Make us to walk as children of light in all goodness and righteousness, that we may have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

One for the early birds: Beverley Minster sunrise pic.twitter.com/Lw4qJK5X6i

— Andy Marshall (@fotofacade) March 8, 2021

What then shall we say about Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Now to one who works, his wages are not reckoned as a gift but as his due. And to one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness. So also David pronounces a blessing upon the man to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works:

“Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered;
blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not reckon his sin.”

Is this blessing pronounced only upon the circumcised, or also upon the uncircumcised? We say that faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it reckoned to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received circumcision as a sign or seal of the righteousness which he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them, and likewise the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but also follow the example of the faith which our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

–Romans 4:1-12

Algorithmen sind sehr wählerisch. pic.twitter.com/lMvBSF5hPY

— Sezgin Keskin (@sezginkeskin719) March 8, 2021