Author: Adam

  • How to Create a Nightmare

    If you find the horror genre fascinating then this blog post is for you. I am about to reveal the secrets for creating your own ghoulish drama, all from the comfort of your own life. This fiendish formula works if you personally want to experience terrifying chills and thrills or if you wish to visit…

  • Know Thyself

    “Only when one is aware of one’s own human predicament can one then begin on the path toward personal moral development and true social betterment. A misunderstanding of the self leads to disastrous results. It fosters a degenerative forgetfulness of one’s own limited nature as well as a dehumanization of the other.” Gerson Moreno-Riaño Here’s…

  • Human Insufficiency

    “Perhaps the most basic [fact], one on which every community is built, is that of human insufficiency. To put it differently, every human being needs other human beings. To deny this natural fact of human existence, so Aristotle teaches, is to confirm that one is either a beast or a god. Human life occurs within…

  • Healthy Introspection

    Previously, I wrote about applying the TQM management philosophy to our personal growth and relationship development. In essence, this means seeing maturity as emerging from a process of acting, evaluating our successes and failures, and then making adjustments to improve our behavior as a result of the evaluation. This cycle of, “Doing, Reviewing, and Improving,”…

  • Do, Review, Improve

    Years ago there was a lot of talk about Total Quality Management (TQM), a management philosophy that aims to create an environment of continuous improvement. I have found the essential idea of TQM to be helpful in thinking about personal growth, and in particular, the development of relationships. While the basic concept is simple, it’s…

  • Why Chastity is a Virtue

    Chastity has historically been considered a virtue in almost every segment of Christianity. It has sometimes been, however, the only test of holiness for some Christians, while today there are a great number who hardly see it as necessary. I want to explore why it is a virtue and yet show that it is superficial…

  • Course Adjustments and Bug Fixes

    Two analogies that have helped me to better understand personal growth are airline flights and software development. The first analogy I learned from Stephen Covey. The second I gleaned from my work as a software engineer. Rather than think of growth in dichotomous terms (pass or fail) it is more helpful, and true to life,…

  • Community and Culture

    Why Christian community is essential to following Christ: “But what we value in a culture is the inside view – the view of the participants, whose emotions, attachments and goals are all clarified by their immersion in a shared way of life, and the web of rituals and images that has been woven into it.…

  • The Christian Vocation – Furthering the Kingdom

    As a young boy, when Jesus was found by His parents in the temple He said that He had to be about His Father’s business (Luke 2:49, literally: “in the things of My Father”). Jesus had a vocation and that vocation was doing the work of His Father. A vocation is a person’s calling in…

  • The Ideal for Humankind

    “Because God is the social Trinity, a plurality in unity, the ideal for humankind does not focus on solitary persons, but on persons-in-community.” Stanley J. Grenz Theology for the Community of God