As "Luke Cage's" character in the new Primetime TV show "Evil" said, science is useful for studying repeatable things, but inadequate for the non-repeatable things in life. The latter includes certain areas of human relationships. No science can predict (other than in vague, non-specific generalities) how the uniqueness of two souls will have their individualities uniquely mix in 5, 10, or 20 years. How their quirks will affect each other. How their humour styles will integrate. How their creativity and originality will affect the creativity and originality of the other. How their free wills will respond to disappointment in the relationship. How their deepest passions will alchemically mix with each other (or fail to). You will never find a scientist who could comprehensively predict how their marriage with their partner would unfold in these areas (as well as some others) after a year. The soul transcends the "closed system of cause-and-effect in time and space". It receives influence, and influences, the spiritual realm in ways that transcend the ticking of time and the sensing of space. You take the originality of two souls and unify them together, and you'll get a drama full of unpredictable, non-repeatable transformations in relationships.

And supernatural life-giving miracles are relational acts from a relational God. They are not impersonal mechanisms.

(By the way, the show Evil is sooo good.)

Re: Post for March 21, 2016 "The Lost Art of Conversation"

One ingredient of a rich story is rich dialogue. If we want our own life story and its dialogues with other characters to be rich, we must do our part in cultivating the art of rich conversation, instead of poor conversation.

Rich conversation colours the sky. Its rainbow includes many strands of vibrancy. An awareness of the chemistry between two characters. An adaptation to the unfolding dynamic. An intuition of the organic flow with an openness to move with it. A ridding of self-consciousness that disrupts the flow. An accurate feel of when not to hijack by saying too much or wallflower by saying too little. A mutuality that helps each person feel that their points are understood. The verbalization of freshly emerging impressions with an articulatory horsepower that allows the rubber of new ideas to furiously hit the road of expression. All while capturing the spontaneous individuality for both characters.

If we do not care about cultivating the art of rich conversation, we may very well end up with dialogue as poor as the characters of an impoverished story.

The Older You Get, The More It Takes To Fill Your Heart With Wonder, And Only God Is Big Enough To Do That

The title is a quote of Ravi Zacharias paraphrasing thoughts of G.K. Chesterton.

I'm feeling this quote just as the Toronto Raptors won their first ever NBA championship last night.

Don't get me wrong. I'm happy they won. I do feel pride for my Toronto roots. For my hometown team.

But surprisingly, the moment wasn't what I was anticipating.

I think the anticipation of victory was more exciting than the victory itself.

I don't think basketball, the NBA, or being riveted on the NBA finals is sinful. But.... it just seems over hyped to me.

Was it just me, or did others feel that at the buzzer, it felt a little anticlimactic? Was it just me, or did people feel the destination seemed like it would be so fulfilling with high definition colours shining in thick rays? Was it just me, or did others feel that arriving at the destination seemed somewhat empty?

It felt like during this whole playoff run for the Raptors, competing for the NBA finals trophy was like fighting for an Avengers infinite stone. Only, when you got finally got it, it was, metaphorically, just a hollow, plastic trophy.

Ravi says something along the lines of "One of the loneliest times in life is when you just experienced what you thought would give you the ultimate satisfaction and it has let you down."

Mortal trophies. They rust.

I choose to train myself for an eternal championship with an eternal trophy that will keep shining in the age to come.

Using Story to Interpret the Bible, the Greatest Story Ever Told

"No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us." - 1 John 4:12

No Lord of the Rings character has ever seen J.R.R. Tolkien; but if Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Gimli, Legolas, Aragorn, Boromir, and Gandalf interact with each other in the unique way they were designed to, Tolkien, their creator, lives in them, and his designs for them are made complete in them.

To feel how cool this verse is in a personalized way, just mentally fill in the blanks with a story of your choice:
"No characters from [the story of your choice] have ever seen [the story's author]; but if [those characters] interact with each other in the unique way they were designed to, [their author], their creator, lives in them, and his/her designs for them are made complete in them."

When you insert a narrative key into the interpretive keyhole of this Bible verse and give it a surprising twist to unlock its philosophically perplexing mysteries, a whole treasure trove of understanding becomes available, and, along with it, a whole lot of drama available in the lived answer.

The Nature of Good Conversation

I've been thinking more lately about the nature of good conversation. Aside from interesting and stimulating content in an engaging talk, I am curious about what makes the process of a good conversation rich. It was somewhat elusive to me before, but now, I think I've noticed a few things about it.

First, I think good conversation consists of each person truly "getting" the other person comprehensively and repeatedly. This happens less frequently than people think. A lot of people think they understand others when they really don't. The test of whether or not one is understood is not feedback from the understander, but from the one being understood. And the way us human beings are made is that when we are repeatedly not understood, it can be very draining. It is not merely a matter of cognitively apprehending the other person's mental contents, but having the other person feel understood. Being misunderstood for a few moments in a conversation is bearable, but when we are misunderstood (or not greatly understood) for a whole extended conversation, it can be very draining. But good conversationalists make it their priority to understand the other person, and ask for clarification when needed. Understanding the other person's thoughts and feelings and feeding it back in a personalized way is like a tennis partner hitting the ball back in a stimulating rally. If your partner repeatedly does not, it is dry.

The second thing about good conversation is that there is a somewhat mysterious back and forth flow to it that both people can smoothly catch on and "vibe" to. There is an unspoken sense of rhythm that both people need to intuit and "dance" to. When a conversation flows, things are smooth, natural, effortless, and almost silk-like. This is something that cannot be taught, at least fully, from textbooks. It is similar to how one cannot teach good spontaneous hip-hop dancing fully from textbooks. It has to be caught. One of the practical things I've learned about the nature of flow is that self-consciousness just suffocates it. If a person repeatedly harasses themselves with the thought "Am I doing this right? Am I doing this wrong?" it completely extinguishes the life of organic flow that flourishes in spontaneity. I've observed that even if people are well-intentioned but their conversational rhythm is abrupt, forced, awkward, and "off-step", it can be sustainable for a while out of courtesy, but draining if carried out in an extended duration.

The third thing that makes a conversation really good is simply authenticity. One does not need to engage in extreme all-or-nothing thinking here in the sense that one is either completely deceitful and fake or completely an open book divulging one's most vulnerable secrets. One can just be intentional about not being deceptive. For example, if something is too personal, one can be up front about not feeling comfortable talking about details but not be fake about one's thoughts or feelings on the matter. Informed concealment is not deception. Tricking the other person about what is behind the curtain, though, is fake. The world is full of deception, and at the end of the day, our souls are just attracted to authentic things in life. So when we finally come across someone who is authentic, it is a breath of fresh air to the soul.

Oh, how we hunger for good conversation!