analogies on Creation

The Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in his book The Home We Build Together , points out to the reader that in scripture the description of the creation of the universe in Genesis is given a mere thirty-fou...

Our lives are meant to inspire with (or inhale) the breath of God, the glory of his presence, the brilliance and beauty of his creation, and to expire (or exhale) an echo of wonder—an “amen.” It shoul...

Robert Burns was a widely heralded poet and lyricist (1759-1796), considered by many as the National Poet of Scotland. Burns’ poems continue to be read around the world and many have been put to song,...

Many of the modern controversies surrounding the Bible—for example, human sexuality, creationism and the “openness” of God—revolve around questions concerning hermeneutics. The science of hermeneutics...

Every creator, from a child with Play-Doh to Michelangelo, learns that creation involves a kind of self-limiting. You produce something that did not exist before, yes, but only by ruling out other opt...

In 1879, the preservationist and explorer John Muir took his first trip to Alaska. As he explored the fjords and rocky landscapes of Alaska’s now famous Glacier Bay, a powerful feeling struck him all ...

Franklin D. Roosevelt had hoped the Yalta conference (which discussed the future of Europe and Germany post-WWII) wouldn’t last more than five or six days. Winston Churchill, however, remarked, “I do ...

Robert Ingersoll, the well-known agnostic, once visited Henry Ward Beecher, the abolitionist and celebrated American preacher of the time. While there, he noticed a stunning globe that displayed the s...

The framework of seven days is rich with divine intention. Certainly, in biblical numerology, the number seven symbolizes divine perfection. But perhaps it goes deeper than that. Echoing church father...

And I was reminded of an event from my father’s childhood: He was in a Sunday school class, listening to his teacher expound on Genesis 1 and a young earth, and asked his teacher how to make sense o...

To make suggests making something out of something else the way a carpenter makes wooden boxes out of wood. To create suggests making something out of nothing the way an artist makes paintings or poem...

Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it...

You may feel as if you are sitting still right now, but it’s an illusion of miraculous proportions. Planet Earth is spinning around its axis at a speed of 1,000 miles per hour. Every 24 hours, planet ...

Sometime in the last decade or so I started hearing the phrase “all that good stuff.” I think it happened first when I was ordering dinner at a restaurant. The waitress summarized the menu briefly, en...

If God wanted to remain silent about His existence, He wouldn’t have bothered creating the stars; He wouldn’t have made the Milky Way, or Betelgeuse. In fact, He wouldn’t have made the majestic Rocky ...

A physician, a civil engineer, and a politician were arguing about what was the oldest profession in the world. The physician remarked, “Well, in the Bible, it says that God created Eve from a rib tak...

After finishing a major project, have you ever stood back, taken in what you have accomplished, and said to yourself, “That’s pretty good”? I’ll admit that I have on numerous occasions, especially aft...