Love and the Reasons Why

 B efore reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, a personal journal written almost 2000 years ago by a man who was once the leader of the Roman Empire, it’s easy to assume that the book will contain nothing relevant to the average modern human being. Aurelius writes it for himself, as a reminder of how he should act on a daily basis, without ever intending for it to be read by anyone else. It isn’t designed to be read by college kids 2000 years later. Wisdom, however, stands the test of both time and social class. What is wise for a great emperor is also wise for a full-time university student. One problem that the world seems to have today is that people constantly disagree and rarely use civil discourse to come to any sort of understanding of one another. Aurelius addresses this issue as far back as the 2 nd century. In his journal of meditations, Marcus Aurelius provides himself with a list of ways to think and act; his suggestions at the beginning of book 2 especially carry o...

Normally I don't have much going on Wednesday mornings, but today I decided to go to what's called a "story group" session purely for the sake of extra credit. I was expecting to go to a room with a few other kids and a professor, hear an excerpt from a good book, maybe discuss it for a moment, and then go home. Turns out the professor asked a couple of really deep, difficult questions and asked us to share our thoughts and possible answers. Also, there was Chick-fil-A. But that's not the point here. One of the questions that we discussed was something that I've been thinking about a lot lately. "Why does God allow difficult things like a global pandemic to happen? What can we take out of all this that's positive?" A question like that is something that I think we all avoid, but it's something that really, really  needs to be discussed. Why does  God allow a global pandemic to ravage the nation and the world? If he's a loving God, why wou...