Meditation on Moria

There’s something about Tolkien’s Middle-earth that stokes my imagination! It’s so easy to step into the Third Age where the hassles and aggravations of the real world just slip away. I even get drawn into the extra appendices at the end! (Personally I think they’re one of the best parts of the books! Why is […]

Playing non-casual MtG as a non-casual Christian

I probably do need to apply for rare breed status… While the phrase “Christian gamer” is no longer an oxymoron as such, for more than 20 years now I have been playing competitive-level Magic as a Christian. It never occurred to me that anyone would ask me to write about it; but, since they have, […]

On fear, courage, and walking steep paths

Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve hardly ever had trouble sleeping. More often than not, the real problem has been dragging myself out of bed in the morning. I’ve slept on a bus as we drove through mountains in Asia. I’ve slept on a fourteen-hour flight across the Atlantic. I even managed to sleep in […]

Shell story

In my offline life, unlike Minecraft, I never find useful stuff on the ground that I can pick up and keep for later. I sometimes pick up litter and very occasionally a 10p piece, but never gold, usable wood or red stone. For various reasons over the last few months I’ve been looking for a nice, […]

Unexpected Deal

My morning scroll of the Facebook statuses: sweeping my fingers over the phone screen, scanning for keywords, or eyecatching images: panning for social media gold. The name caught my eye. He was a young author who’s books I’d read. He was a scholar and a YouTuber. At some point in his adult life, he’d crossed […]

Go team or go rogue

It started with an email and ballooned into a complicated problem within one of the communities I belong to. It was a tense few days before it settled down. While we were trying to sort it all out, one of my mentors asked me to think about what my priorities were. My answer was almost […]

Discovering Patience through Super Meat Boy

Patience is defined as “the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, problems, or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious.” (Thanks Oxford!) That’s not exactly what comes to mind when I think of Super Meat Boy. Super Meat Boy is a platformer with incredibly difficult levels, where you respawn instantly every time you die . It […]