MSI Press Blog

We live in a world that loves definition. We name, categorize, and measure everything—from galaxies to emotions. Even our spiritual lives often follow this pattern: we imagine the Divine as something we can understand, predict, or contain. Yet the truth is far more humbling. The Divine is larger than our expectations—larger than our theology, our imagination, and our capacity to comprehend. 1. The Limits of Expectation Expectation is a human reflex. We build it from experience, culture, and desire. We expect God to act in ways that make sense to us—to reward goodness, to punish evil, to answer prayer in recognizable form. But the Divine does not operate within our logic. It moves through paradox, silence, and surprise. When we expect the sacred to appear only in holy places, we miss its presence in ordinary ones. When we expect revelation to sound like thunder, we overlook the whisper. When we expect love to look like comfort, we fail to see it in challenge. Expectation narrows the ape...

  I have been thinking a lot about authority and autonomy lately. I know I would like some standard--or algorithm, in today's language--as to when to follow authority and when to follow our own judgment.  The truth, though, is that it always comes down to the latter. Even if we defer to some authority, we have made the choice of which authority to follow--a choice already influenced by our own upbringing, values, experiences, etc. I guess there is comfort in projecting those values on an Authority "out there," but that "plausible deniability" is really illusory.  In that context, we may need to reconsider some of some of our mythic heroes and the decisions that they made. Maybe the Biblical Abraham was wrong in offering to sacrifice his son, Isaac, at God's command. Maybe Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita was wrong in suppressing his compassion for his kin because of Krishna's demand that he fulfill his duty as a warrior. Or, put another way, maybe Jean Paul S...