What a week. The phrase “shattered but still hopeful” is on my mind. Almost 300 killed by bombs in Baghdad. Economic and leadership turmoil in the U.K. after the decision to leave the European Union. Continued polarization in the United States, now deepened even more by tragic killings in Minnesota, Louisiana and Texas. In… Read More Shattered Yet Not Without Hope
This week marks the end of my first year of blogging! And the start of the second year! This is my 71st post (including a handful I shared from others or had guests write) and as of today there have been 10, 193 views and 5, 767 visitors. One of the exciting things to me… Read More First Year of Blogging Completed!
It was 34 years ago this week that I was surprised by India. On June 29th, 1982 in Honolulu while serving with YWAM, a small “whisper” came to me. It was the word “Calcutta”. That started a short but intense process, ending with me leading a team to Calcutta (now Kolkata) to begin the first… Read More Surprised by India: Grateful for the Gift
Many of us have heard that the first universities were in Europe, growing often out of monastic education. The second part only is accurate. Actually the first universities, or centers of learning, were in Asia. They were in places like Taxila in what is now Pakistan, Nalanda in Eastern India (ruins are in the photo… Read More The First Universities were in Asia, not Europe
The phrase ‘America First‘ sends a chill down my spine. Used by the presumptive Republican nominee for President in the United States, at least on some occasions, it is not where the world is going in the future. Nor, at least before 1945 and arguably 1918, was it the world in the past. It evokes… Read More ‘America First’? Not if India and China Have A Say In It
Wondering what my favorite movie is? Not interested? I’ll tell you anyway. It’s Gladiator, the Oscar-winning blockbuster starring Russell Crowe as a Roman General in 180 A.D. He serves loyally the Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, but runs afoul of the wicked son and becomes a slave and gladiator. I’ve seen it many times, as recently as… Read More An ‘Imperial’ View of History
It is the first few days of Ramadan, the month of fasting that Muslims all over the world are participating in. As an act of love, faith and hope, an estimated one million Christians are praying for their Muslim friends and neighbours during these same 30 days. What is not often considered is that those… Read More Praying Not Only For Muslims But With Them
Some years ago in Delhi, India, I listened to a Muslim friend describing how he had only seen his wife-to-be through a veil before the wedding night. He had also shared only a few words with her. In a minority culture of Northwest China as pictured in the scene above, the bridegroom uses a stick… Read More Do You Have a Flawed View of History?
Peter Frankopan and the Sogdians? Sounds like an Indie music group that would appear at international music festivals in places like Coachella, Croatia, and the Isle of Wight. Wrong. Peter Frankopan is an Oxford-based researcher who wrote in 2015 perhaps the most comprehensive book to date on trade routes in Asia, titled The Silk Roads:… Read More Peter Frankopan and the Sogdians
One of the greatest gifts a father or mother can give their child is the permission to fail. What? Don’t I mean to succeed? No, to fail. As we learn from entrepreneurs, writers, artists and creative people of any kind, it takes many times of failure to gain the key lessons for success. Yet our… Read More It’s Okay To Fail, My Son
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Encounters of Faith in Asia: Past, Present and Future 