BEXORG gets its brains from organ procurement organizations after “extensive informed consent”. The company assures partners and investors that some of the world’s most renowned ethicists have examined their procedures and given them the green light.

Some controversy was generated when lead researchers in the company published a paper in Nature in 2019 illustrating the experiment they carried out on roughly three hundred 6-8 month pig brains in normothermic ex-vivo conditions. The brains were taken from pigs that had gone through the slaughterhouse. For the layperson, that means they removed young pig brains and kept them at body temperature in their experimental setup. In their own words, here is what they were able to accomplish with their novel techniques:

“With this system, we observed preservation of cytoarchitecture; attenuation of cell death; and restoration of vascular dilatory and glial inflammatory responses, spontaneous synaptic activity, and active cerebral metabolism in the absence of global electrocorticographic activity. These findings demonstrate that under appropriate conditions the isolated, intact large mammalian brain possesses an underappreciated capacity for restoration of microcirculation and molecular and cellular activity after a prolonged post-mortem interval.”

In plain language, the cells were stabilized, cell death stopped, and blood vessels and inflammatory cells recovered the ability to respond to stimuli. They were able to reengage metabolism in parts of the specimens, and they found evidence that some neurons were communicating with each other (synaptic discharges). In another paragraph about neuron function, they state:

“All recorded neurons responded to suprathreshold depolarizing current stimuli with repetitive action potential firing (Fig. 6c) and expressed both voltage-gated fast Na⁺ currents and delayed-rectifier K⁺ currents (Fig. 6d). In addition to these passive properties, the action potential parameters (spike threshold −48 ± 0.6 mV, spike amplitude 80.3 ± 6.1 mV, and spike duration 1.58 ± 0.24 ms) were similar to those reported previously³⁸, and spontaneous excitatory postsynaptic currents (sEPSCs) were seen at a holding potential of −70 mV”

This means that in their BrainEx model for the pig brains, the neurons maintained their ability to generate electrical flux across the membranes! It means that neurons can fire and propagate electrical signals, ex vivo, outside the pig body.

Since that article, BEXORG has had experience with over 700 human brains. Several posters have been published. The first article describing their experience with human brains is yet to be published. They have secured 45 M in funding. On their website, they assure the public that they have anesthetized the human brains and that no integrated activity exists. They are sure consciousness is not possible in their model. Yet, based on published findings in their pig model, neuronal synaptic activity is possible. Their claims of no integrated activity in the human model are suspect, in my opinion, based on their own published pig data.

I haven’t dived into all the details. But the technologists and scientists at the lab are very clever people. They have figured out how to hack several physiologic problems, artificially replacing the functions of the blood, lungs, and kidneys to get the “post mortem” brains actually to work. They assure us that the brains don’t work “globally speaking”, “as a whole”. Whatever.

If what they are finding is true, then death as we take it is not what we think we understand it to be. It certainly does not look like the permanent irreversible loss of organ function just a minute or so after the cessation of circulation. It looks like a dissipating capacity that diminishes over hours, and probably at different rates depending on the organ. It also seems to affirm the wisdom of the ancients that the true signs of death are marked by the development of features in the body such as rigidity and coldness. Those features take a few hours.

The phenomenon of life remains a mystery that the scientific method cannot measure nor directly describe. What I mean is that we can identify when something is alive by signs so apparent it seems redundant to state them. An organism is certainly alive if it breathes, moves, protects itself from the environment, acquires food from the environment, and then ejects its waste products into the environment. Something is alive if it can heal and remain integrated. Yet we cannot say what animates the organism. We call it life. We cannot put our finger “scientifically speaking” on the thing that is life.

So… BEXORG? And death….?

Reading about BEXORG only makes me wonder that we don’t know what we think we know about death. About the death of the brain, the end of consciousness, the end of life when the heart stops, and the capacities of the body as blood flow ceases and the heart quiets. BEXORG takes human brains from people who have recently been declared dead and gets them to work in limited capacities, assuring the public that they’re not conscious.

In modern Western American medicine, this works legally because the person has been declared dead. Their heart stopped, breathing has ceased, and they don’t move. But does it morally work? The capacity for life clearly remains in the brains they are experimenting on by the fact that there is function, even if only partly. Every friend and family member I have told about the BEXORG experiments on human brains is grossed out. They wish they hadn’t heard about it.

Metabolism is a sign of life. It’s a sign of some function. And that they anesthetize the brain as a fail-safe to suppress consciousness is… well, it begs the question if BEXORG believes its own claims. What is troubling about the experiments is that the mind itself, as far as we understand it, is at least partly a (primary) function of the brain. Quite literally, BEXORG is experimenting on disembodied brains with partly recovered functions. Who is to say that they are not experimenting on disembodied minds? Or partially mindful brains? And in the Western worldview, where such a heavy anthropological emphasis is placed on the presence of mind as the sign of being, these experiments make one think that they may indeed be experimenting on largely disabled beings who may or may not be having a real disembodied experience.

Where this drives my thinking about the question of life at the end is that BEXORG experiments show that the capacities for life clearly take time to dissipate from the recently pulseless individual - at least they take time to dissipate from the organs themselves. What is true of the brain is true for the kidneys, the liver, etc… In fact, this is the basis for the rapid declaration of death in American ICUs in patients whose surrogates have agreed to withdraw support and agreed to donate organs such as the heart, lungs, kidneys, and liver. The sooner death is declared, the greater the function of the recovered organ. This is how it is possible to recover a donor heart in someone who has died by circulatory criteria. The team waits 2-5 minutes after the last and final pulse, and the patient’s body is opened up on the operating table to begin recovering organs. The capacity for life in the heart is not yet destroyed. What’s remarkable about the BEXORG experiments is that they can reanimate some brain functions in brains recovered 4 hours after circulation ceases in the recently deceased patient.

So. The only conclusion I can make about the evidence they present is that the capacity for (some) function in intact organs after the cessation of circulation is NOT completely permanently and irreversibly destroyed even hours after the cessation of circulation.

These experiments, in my view, challenge our understanding of death. They affirm the goodness of having a humble respect for the end of life in the ICU. They cause me to reconsider what we are doing to our patients at the end of life for the sake of organ procurement. They also make me think about how easy it is to objectify the dying, or even the recently dead, trading dignity and peace for scientific access.

In my next segment, I will examine the controversies around declaring death by neurologic and circulatory criteria. I will present the philosophies advanced by religious and non-religious ethicists who support or criticize current common practices.

Today I listened to a conversation between Abby Robertson and Will Ford. It was recorded June 2026 for a podcast called Heaven Meets Earth. Abby Robertson interviews remarkable people who have experienced the power of the Lord in their lives in tangible ways and often find themselves thrust into adventures not of their own making. Will Ford is a pastor with a gift for helping others heal from their wounds and prejudice. In the interview he testifies to the call of the Lord he has experienced on his heart to bring the healing love of Jesus into the acrid residue of racial tension, division, and hatred that was birthed out of the slave trade. In his account, he describes a prophetic dream in which he saw Martin Luther King emptying a white duffel bag with black handles of all its crap on the table and foreswearing the duffel bag. In the dream, MLK invited him personally to do the same, and help other people empty their hearts of unforgiveness, judgment, and accusation. He describes hearing God tell him to begin a life of prayer by blessing his neighborhood with prayer - in the flesh and physically, by walking through his neighborhood, praying the word of God through the streets.

For whatever reason, I have been drawn to the literary accounts of slavery. I am grateful to the Lord for this, because it has helped me to contemplate where the “spirit of slavery” operates today, in our time and in our country. Specifically, I wonder how objectification operates in medicine: in the hospital and the growing array of technological interfaces between patient and doctor, or patient and nurse. I wonder how objectification operates in our thinking about the declaration of death and how and why we transplant organs. I wonder how this spirit to compel others operated during COVID. There’s so much currently in medicine to think about… I’ll write more about the ethics of organ donation later. I’ve been thinking about it - a lot.

For the time being, I can say that I have been impacted substantially by a few literary works that emerged out of slavery in the 1700s and 1800s (to the above, I would add Amos Fortune: Free Man”.) They have shed light for me on what it means to be free, to have your freedom taken, to be treated as an animal, or worse - an object, and to heroically tend and nurture the gift of Christian Hope in one’s heart and family against a very dark power.

I have appreciated the testimony of William Ford in the studio with Abigail Robertson about praying for freedom, forgiving generational hurt and sinfulness, teaching others to do it, and reaching for and cooperating with the Lord to forgive, heal, and grow new bonds of love with those we live next to. Ford discusses the gift that it is to take up the dreams of the generations that have gone before us to experience the love and reconciliation that God offers in Jesus. Ford makes me think about how Terese and I teach our children to reconcile, to empty out bad thinking, and to see the way that God sees.

Take a listen to the interview. It’s beautiful.

It’s hard for me to believe that any of the promises people are making about AI will come to pass other than it is a new technology and things will change. I can agree with that much. But I don’t think that that AI will replace our judgment, or that AI will foment nuclear disaster, or that AI will somehow make human life completely irrelevant. That’s all hogwash. 

I don’t believe that AI is conscious. I don’t believe that AI has any insight whatsoever. And I don’t think that AI can make new conclusions or generate creative ideas. It’s not in its nature. It’s nature is mechanical and electrical. Its nature is NOT BIOLOGICAL. And it is CERTAINLY NOT SPIRITUAL. That we have created a machine that we don’t understand completely and is capricious in many respects, is not a surprise. Over the course of history humankind has invented things that we didn’t truly understand. Well, perhaps we understood them, but we didn’t understand the consequence. We let go of wisdom, we went ahead with the project anyway, and now we are left dealing with the consequences. That was true for fire, forthe knife, for the wheel, for the printed page, for the steam engine, for electricity, for the airplane, for the telephone, for nuclear fission. This is true for “AI”. 

Be it noted as well that AI as a “term” is a waste basket term. It means that some software project absorbed some directions by language rendering that were smoothed, reiterated, adjusted, by the machine that does this stuff, and it spit out a result, according to the instructions that were loosely followed.  There’s AI for this, AI for that, AI for pictures, AI for language, AI for the military, AI for textile production, AI for your Tesla, AI for your workout program and AI for AI. What the heck?! There’s AI for everything. Because there’s AI for everything, it just means that we are loosening our controls over the engines, and letting them run themselves and run each other. We’re too busy to pay attention.

How on earth is it that people think that AI has agency or can understand a problem? Or can radically come up with creative ideas? Or can come up with a creative solution to a problem? It’s all based on “old” stuff, and by nature has no intelligence. I’m just not buying the crap that people are selling. When we looked at engines (that someone designed and ran) for the first time and saw them run, we were amazed that the engine was alive. When we need to shut it off quickly, we say, “Kill it!”  and still, we know that engines are not alive. AI robots dressed like Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s enemy, are not human, and not intelligent. They just look really scary.

People will be people, and machines will be machines. Slaves to machines? Bullshit. Reject the lie. If the uncontrolled activity of a machine threatens to destroy people, re-engineer the damn thing. Don’t push the button. 

Hello?  I’ve read enough the past few days where people are saying that it’s out of the box, there’s no going back, we’re all screwed, and Stephen Hawking was right: we have finally out invented (screwed) ourselves into oblivion.

Give me a break! Men still love women, women still love men, they still make babies, and they will still work to provide for their families and pass on their wisdom and teaching to their offspring. 

Yes, we will depend/use on AI to help us answer vexing questions, and to make protected or embargoed information available to more people. The horizons for creativity will be adjusted because the content of more disciplines will be generally available. Doctors will contend with thornier questions about therapeutics from skeptical patients in the office or the ICU. Inspired by the Artemis missions, Boy Scout clubs will attempt to build bigger rockets than the home association has a policy for. And terrorists will look for more creative ways to build bombs. People will have more access to bad ideas, just as much as they will have access to great ideas! It’s still up to us. I’m a human being, and the machine is not!. Period.

Furthermore, by my baptism, I’m endowed with an imperative to love beyond myself. I’m not handing that over to a machine.

What are we? Crazy? Do we adore the work of our hands so much, that we’re willing to transfer our longing for God and our worship of His loving Word to a software program?

What are we coming to? Let’s get real. Get outside, look at the stars, hug your kids, make love to your wife.  Reject the lie that robots have come to end your relevance. Remember where you came from, dive into your calling and teach the next generation to do the same. 

The raising of Lazarus, pencil on paper.

Blessings on your Holy Week may the Lord’s passion give you strength. May his Resurrection give you Life.

Dead wood dry

Stacked cold

The stock of Summers past

Piled on the porch

The cat lingers

Atop of the pile

Yawning, half interested

Not enough to move

Wind picks up

Last year’s leaves blow

Stark branch branches bend

And push the bough

Trunks strain against the gusts

Rooted in frosted earth

Air swirls like fine sugar,

Layering in cracks and crags,

Dusting the Earth in white

Dry, dead wood

Stacked warm.

A table in a womb of stone

Now alight, unleashing summer in the home

Wind howls.

The hearth glows,

Crackling and popping.

Daughter and mother play games laughing.

The glow of ancient solar life,

Released, unbound and alive

For the moment warms the home.

Father and son rest, by the fire sleeping.

In the last month, we have cut away paths in the woods to install electric fence. The honeysuckle is just beginning to bloom. Tick season is right around the corner. I could have easily missed the window I had to put electric fence up.

Two weeks ago, we pruned all the fruit trees in our Orchard. Just in the nick of time. It’s important to do the pruning before the sap rises and the tree organizes how it distributes its vital resources into leaves or fruit buds.

We just finished planting indoor seeds. As far as that goes, I might actually be a little on the late side for some of the plants. I think we’ll make it, though.

We grafted peach stems onto tree stock capable of supporting stone fruit. I think the timing was perfect. The sap is rising, it’s still cool outside, and the tree can make connections with the graft without losing much moisture or being threatened by warm weather.

Baby chicks arrived last week, and they are in the brooder. Within the last week, they have nearly doubled in size. Another few weeks, and they will be outside in a brooder under lamps. Just in time for spring, and warmer weather.

For five days now, there has been an incessant chorus of frogs down at our cattle pond. 24 hours a day, all day long. The clouds have risen higher in the sky, and the moisture content has gone up. Thunderheads tower over the landscape. Temperature swings are more intense. Yesterday morning it was 90°. This morning, and 2 inches of rain later, it is 45°.

Seriously, there is a flurry of activity right now. The pace is really picking up! And it’s all motivated by this particular window of weather that provokes fruitfulness.

For me, a hobby farmer with a different primary vocation, this is what “seizing the opportunity” looks like. For me, now, it seems to have visible spiritual parallels. Goodness, it’s taken me several decades to realize this. When the Holy Spirit begins to stir the heart, the time is now! Today is the day of the Lord. If we are experiencing the impulse of the Holy Spirit to make a decision, to make a move, it is because the time and the circumstances are exactly right for that move, for that decision. If I wait another week before deciding, the circumstances will have changed, and the power of the decision the Holy Spirit is prompting me to make will likely be diminished. Or come to a different effect.

This present time of coming fruitfulness is demonstrating to me how terrible it is when I presume that I will have time tomorrow. Or the week after, or the following month. I don’t mean to say that I endorse anxiety about everything that I must do, or tend obsessively to my crazy task list that is not at all reasonable. I do mean to say, that there are times and seasons for things, and if you don’t do the thing the season calls for, you will miss both the opportunity to do it and the reward of having done it.

I have more than just a few friends who have been marveling at the outpouring of grace and miraculous conversion they have witnessed in others they never expected to come to Christ. There has been an explosion of testimony about people seeing, experiencing, and feeling the presence of God in their lives in a tangible way that has brought about real change. Is this not a sign of the times? What is this saying about the times? Is this not in some way similar to the appearance of fruit buds on a tree, or flowers on the vine that is the Lord in his church? Is this not an indication of a bountiful harvest by a Master Gardener, who knows what he’s doing?

It makes me think about what I’m doing that I shouldn’t be doing, and what I’m not doing that I should be doing. The day of the Lord is definitely coming. For me. For you. For all of us. Some of us will have the experience of being robbed, for we will experience it as thieves coming in the night, caught unawares.

Is He really calling for fruit in my life? Jesus talks about his Father pruning us. Jesus curses a fruitless fig tree (that bears no fruit in the off-season - of all times!) causing its death. The first story in the Bible is set in a garden. The One who ordered it wanders its lanes looking for the stewards of that garden. The Lord knows gardening and seasons. He knows us and the seasons of our lives.

Where do I need the Lord‘s grace to see with more clarity the subtle movements that he is enjoining upon me and my circumstance so that I might prepare for His day, for His harvest, for the fruitfulness that He is growing in me and in my family? There are definitely times for things.

What does the end of winter and the coming spring time evoke for you in your spiritual life?

Every class day, our student is responsible for sharing three prominent observations from work in the prior class. Observation number one today was this: “If you stewarded your time well, you would probably have time for it.” What followed was a rich conversation about having time for fruitful and meaningful passions.

How many of us find ourselves in situations, or in circumstances, where we’d actually like to be doing more of what’s important to us? Where we’d like to be contributing to our families, our communities, and society at large in a meaningful way by doing what we love? I would surmise that most of us long for that. And I would also surmise that most of us are afflicted by a lack of inspiration, community, and a conducive environment - the kind of environment where we are conversing with other interesting people who are doing creative things with their free time. But instead, our free time feels like anemic boredom. And so we move toward divertissement.

Our farm hand has naturally been contemplating how to make his idea of restorative/integrative agriculture work within an urban model that won’t immediately reward his efforts with money. So he’s asking himself the question: “What else do I like to do? How can I make money? How can I do agriculture as a rewarding and eventually self-sustaining enterprise?” His answer? It all comes down to how you spend your free time. This conclusion is coming from an 18-year-old young man who loves basketball, has great friends, comes from a supportive family environment, and is creatively beginning to problem-solve how to make space for his internal passions in a modern environment that’s not engineered for them. A modern environment that may be, in fact, engineered against them.

In my profession, pediatric hospital-based medicine, the issue of having a creative, fruitful, rewarding ambition outside of the halls of the hospital is deeply important! Yet I suspect that many of my colleagues suffer from an impoverished, siloed medical space where we don’t have access to the examples that exist within one another’s lives about how to live a peaceful and fruitful lifestyle that cultivates healing, deep thinking, and an appreciation for the mystery of our patients’ lives.

William Osler wrote about the necessity of having a solid past time, a fruitful hobby. He wrote that leisure is fundamentally important to the soul of a physician, where the pressures of work and the pressures of patients’ lives are stepped away from… Where the space to contemplate the truth and the meaning embedded within the natural order is appreciated and loved differently: “The young doctor should look about early for an avocation, a pastime, that will take him away from patients, pills, and potions.” Josef Pieper, a 20th-century German philosopher, said of leisure and its relationship to work, “Unless we regain the art of silence and insight, the ability for nonactivity, unless we substitute true leisure for our hectic amusements, we will destroy our culture and ourselves.” A 2011 BMC study examining the relationship between engagement, burnout, and types of leisure among physicians in the British medical system found that avocations and other forms of leisure correlate with greater passion and engagement in work.1

I recently listened to a conversation between Jeffrey Tucker, the founder of Brownstone Institute, and Brett Weinstein about the perils of narrow-mindedness and the impoverishment of academics.

They saw the widespread problem of thinking crippled by professional blinders as the result of a lack of cross-fertilization and debate between people of different disciplines. They examined the global COVID lockdown and vaccine mandates in light of this widespread mental and moral impoverishment. I heartily agree with their analysis! If you have the time for their digest, it’s instructive.

Returning to my student, what is possible if he combines some kind of career in sports medicine, kinesiology, and regenerative farming? I would surmise that he would come to new insights that very few people enjoy. What would happen if he combined a career in regenerative agriculture with a career in high school sports coaching? I would surmise that he would have particular insights into the nature of his students’ challenges and unique ways of approaching them.

Education is about vastly more than learning the knowledge base of a particular field. Effective education is about weaving an appreciation and understanding of the order of things into an ever-growing complex scaffold of wisdom that accepts mystery and wonder without trying to break it, bend it, or split it. A wisdom that accepts nature and her mysteries, allowing for romance and a particular dance, avoiding the temptation to compel her to yield her secrets, causing her death in the process.

So, as my student says, “if you stewarded your time well, you probably could have time for it.”

What are some of the “side interests”, or hobbies that have led you on a journey of deeper knowledge and deeper wisdom?

Well, guess what? That young man and my student were out in our woods together today helping me advance the project of getting our electric fence set up for hogs in our wooded area.

It amazes me, on nearly a daily basis, certainly a weekly basis, how so many adventures that come my way seem to be related to the goodness of others. I truly believe underneath it all is the goodness of the Lord.

This isn’t trite. And I’m not saying that goodness is everywhere and all you gotta do is open your eyes to see it. Work is hard, sacrifices have to be made, and making space for good fruit in our lives is demanding and relies on the benevolence of others. None of us are self made.

What I am saying here is that it’s easy to get bogged down in our own plans, our own needs, our own schemes, and all too often forget that good adventures can be had by paying attention to the generosity of the Lord in your life and in others’ lives. The Lord says in Matthew 5:45, in his Sermon on the Mountain that God makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

God is just. And he is good. And he is generous! His mode with us, all of us, regardless of what we’ve done, or whether or not we deserve anything, is generous, generous love.

Through the goodness of these families, and their children who have learned this model of goodness, our wooded lot is fenced off, our animals have more land on which to exert their special gifts, and much fellowship and mutual learning have been shared.

My wife and I are physicians, and anything we have to teach about homesteading, we have learned as adults. We’re still learning and making mistakes as we go. And to be honest, some days are just tough. You do what you do because you love it. After a few years, the gloss wears off, and the repairs pile up. And you think to yourself, “Boy, this would be great if we could do it with others.” This week, with the cold, our youngest son has been out there every morning breaking up two-inch-thick ice. Well, although many in our neighborhood will come over to look at the animals with their children, not that many people on the edge of the city have a similar project as ours. Whatever. You’d just like the help and companionship doing what you love. So, this request from our son’s high school buddy was a welcome surprise.

I’m writing this reflection in particular because I just finished reading Dr. Gaty’s essay on farm boys and hollowed out schools. It got me thinking. My experience teaching this high schooler in the past two weeks emphatically illustrates the points that Gaty makes.

One of our daily homework assignments is to record three observations in the homesteading journal. The observations are meant to create a record of what captivates this young man’s imagination in the spirit of wonder. Here are some of the observations that he has made (in my words and no particular order). In italics is the gist of the discussion that followed.

1. Breaks in the electric fence seem to occur more commonly along the border of the pasture and wooded area, as opposed to deep in the woods. This is likely because the pasture represents a desired area for an herbivore (deer). The border between the pasture and the woods provides a hiding place.

2. Several of the barn cats seem curious about our activity and follow us as we go along a walk to visit the borders of the farmstead. Animals of the same species or breed all have unique personalities. Some of the cats are curious. Some are not. They sure seem to appreciate the human company.

3. A freshly laid egg is wet and warm, yet when the mucus dries, it is very slick and no longer sticky. The mucous on the egg serves a protective function, wherein dust and dirt will fall off the egg, and the egg will remain clean over the period of brooding. The mucous layer is also breathable, allowing gas exchange for the developing chick.

4. Compared to our homestead, the large farm he worked on last summer depended on mechanized cultivation and seemed to be more focused on fixing machines than on tending nature. A nonmechanized homestead requires tender care and knowledge of the farm’s nooks and crannies. Good care requires that people work together in proximity.

5. Breeding for certain character traits or certain features in a species often results in trade-offs that produce vulnerabilities in different areas. The docile honeybee found in America is an example compared to the African honeybee. The evolution of dog breeds is a fascinating topic. Breeding is superior to genetic engineering because the resulting traits are integrated with balance, the resulting offspring being viable and healthy. The resulting genetic drift is not a liability to the animal or the species as a whole.

Every single one of these observations has led to rich conversation about the structure and the meaning of the natural order. The young man that I’m tutoring is not particularly a fan of sitting down in a classroom for multiple hours a day, working from subject to subject. Nor is he a fan of spending several hours a night at a desk doing homework. He loves sports, he’s relatively restless, and enjoys being outside. He’s a remarkably good basketball player. I’m not saying there’s no place for homework in his life. There is. The fruits of contemplation need to be hardened by the frame of grammar, logic and rhetoric. Indeed, his class work on our farmstead includes writing papers, keeping a tidy journal, and spending time making plans. I believe it’s taxing to spend extended periods of time listening and thinking when a young man might not be provided with much to think about in the first place, or if the subject of his thoughts is widely divergent from the lesson at hand.

The point here is that education is most meaningful when it’s lodged in lived experience. Connected to the senses, the emotions, and plugged into personal attention, this style of teaching opens up the horizon for wonder, and questions that push naturally into contemplation. In this style of education, there’s room for spontaneous questions. There’s a natural tendency to harness the powers of focus because the project at hand demands a seriousness - accomplishment upon which tomorrow’s projects depend. If we don’t do this thing right, then tomorrow we won’t be able to do that thing right. There’s a natural long view that develops with an appreciation of the details along the way.

The structure of our classes seems natural to me and not put on. We share a cup of coffee, we open up the notebooks and share our observations from the day before, and then we proceed with material pertinent to the curriculum that I’ve developed which honors the normal pattern of taking care of a Homestead in the winter and the early spring. Putting this down on paper, I am surprised myself by how much there is to learn including things from the practical to the philosophic. This spring, we will cover Joel Salatin’s views of stewardship, according to a Christian ethic. We will read practical material on planting a large garden and running a small farm, and we will read historic accounts of agriculture from CreveCoeur around the time of the American Revolution. In this class, we are learning more than gardening and animal husbandry. We are touching on theology, philosophy, soil science, psychology, water and carbon cycles, permaculture, marketing, commerce, and American history!

I have no idea what this young man will wind up doing in his early 20s and at the beginning of his career. But I do know that the time he spends on our farm holds his attention. I’m sure it will bless whatever endeavor he chooses to take on as a young man.

All you dads out there… What do you think is needed to teach young men effectively?

I can’t help but be moved. Hannah was a barren woman who came to the temple several years earlier to pour out her sorrow… OUT LOUD. Eli, the temple priest came upon her weeping and wailing, and chastised her for drunkenness, nearly kicking her out of the temple. She responded, “I am an unhappy woman. I have had neither wine nor liquor; I was only pouring out my troubles to the LORD. … My prayer has been prompted by my deep sorrow and misery.” She receives Eli’s blessing, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.” Hannah leaves and joins her husband, Elkannah, no longer downcast. The next morning she worships before the Lord with him, and then they return home (1 Samuel 1:15-19).

Hannah conceives and Samuel is born at the end of her term.  Hannah waits until he is weaned to join her husband on his yearly trip to the temple. This time, she presents their son to the Lord with a three year old bull, flour, and wine and leaves him in the temple under the care of Eli and the temple court in thanksgiving for hearing her prayer.  She gives up their son. 

Amazing.

Hannah had poured her heart out to the Lord without filtering her emotion or quieting her voice. She embarrassed herself (at least in Eli’s view). There is no information in the text that Hannah heard directly from the Lord that her prayer was answered. There was just Eli’s eventual understanding and blessing. She managed to put away her sorrow, praise the Lord and go home with Elkannah, later to find that... Surprise! She’s with child.

Does that happen to you and me? To pray with grief, and to receive a blessing some time later that we recognize as Gods gift? First of all, when we pray, do we have the gannas to pray to the Lord out loud, with our heart? Do we allow ourselves the tears, the anger, the wailing, the supplication that Hannah allows herself? Are we willing to risk embarrassment? Do we trust God with the mess and the hurt that is in our hearts about our handicaps? about our failures? About the things we have NEVER enjoyed but that would fulfill a gaping hole in our life?

What do we do with the silence we receive as an answer to prayer? Do we say, “God never says anything.”? Or “I just don’t hear God.”? Hannah didn’t “hear” God answer her prayer.  I am sure that Hannah had a real good cry. With that grief out of her system, she put herself together and praised the Lord the next morning. How about that for a model of prayer? One, pour out your heart to the Lord. The good, the bad and the ugly. And then, two, put yourself together and Praise the Lord!  Wait for it…. Step three, act like you know the Lord heard you. What does Hannah do after she returns home? She has relations with Elkannah. And…. She bears a son 9 months later: Samuel.

The story only gets richer. She raises this boy so that she might return him to the service of the Lord who answered her prayer! The blessing she received from God, she returns to God for his Glory. When she finally returns to the temple, we hear this from her lips: 

“My heart exults in the LORD, my horn is exalted in my God. I have swallowed up my enemies; I rejoice in my victory. There is no Holy One like the LORD; There is no Rock like our God.” 1 Samuel 2:1

Samuel Dedicated by Hannah at the Temple by Frank W W Topham

What?!?! Here is a woman in Judea giving her son away to the temple service proclaiming that her “horn” is “Exalted in my God!” I’m not a Jew. But it seems remarkable that a woman is boasting about her horn in the temple. That’s like imagining my mother standing up in the middle of church on Saturday during private prayer with a few other churchgoers and proclaiming with passion to the astonishment of those who had come to recite the Rosary quietly “My sword is undefeated in God” or “Nothing can pierce my armor” or “My weapons are deadly!” It’s an understatement to say that Hannah was praying with boldness.  She continues: her enemies are swallowed up and her victory is worth rejoicing over. What enemies?  What victory?  People have rude neighbors. And some women have a hard time getting pregnant. Enemies?  Victory?

In the sight of Hannah’s faith, we are like puppies or confused sheep when we look at our blessings.  Come on! When was the last time I PRAISED God with a full throat for His victory over my enemies? By the way, who are my enemies?  There are people I don’t like. People I’ve nursed a grudge over. But real enemies that the Lord should destroy?  Uhhh as a Westerner, that’s a hard one.  Am I really willing to go to battle with the Lord ahead of me?  To follow His lead?

Hear me for a minute. I don’t believe that Hannah’s enemies are her neighbors or those who’ve detracted her for being childless. I don’t think she’s praising the Lord for victory over her rude neighbors. I think that she is casting out wickedness, pride, and unbelief - the spiritual experience of those who might condemn her, the despair she herself might be tempted to. Because of the gift of Samuel, she is praising God for the victory of courage in sorrow, the power of faith in the midst of hopelessness. And dang! GOD DELIVERS!

In the home of Elizabeth, as the spirits of the two boy cousins tickle each other in their respective wombs, Mary of Nazareth is overcome!  She picks up Hannah’s prayer and crowns it, knowing in the depths of her being that her child will also be dedicated to the Lord: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!”  Unlike Hannah, this surprise in Mary’s life was not the result of a prayer for relief from unhappiness and childlessness.  I believe it was the answer to the deep living prayer that Mary had been pouring out, for she had found favor with the Most High, as Gabriel announces.  And like Hannah, Mary KNOWS the greatness of the Lord and his desire to be magnified in her. Mary can’t help it. She just magnifies the Lord. She rejoices in His goodness to her. She too continues with the battle cry: 

“he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts, he has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away.” (Luke1:49-53)

Mary knows who she is - a handmaiden of the Lord!  She knows the victory of the Lord is taking flesh in her very womb! 

It’s only been until recently that I have encountered Mary’s prayer as the prayer of a maiden-warrior’s heart. There’s nothing soft about it. This prayer is all about God‘s victory - over powerlessness, pride, and shame.  Over despair, over poverty, over theft, over faithlesness. Over ingratitude and contempt. It is about his mercy, his faithfulness, the fulfillment of his promise. His compassion. His fatherhood of the generations. 

May we praise the Lord for the example of Mary! May we praise the Lord for the example of Hannah! May we praise the Lord for the example of faith we have in our mothers, our grandmothers, our wives, our sisters and the women in our lives who have turned to the Lord in their need with faith and then praised him for all the good he has done for them and their families.  

Our God is an awesome God, and he reigns with power and wisdom and love. May the Lord give us the strength to pray with vulnerability and conviction so that we might receive and recognize the gifts that we are waiting for him to pour out into our lives.  

Merry Christmas, friends!  Go. Praise the Lord for all the good he has done for us. 

Who are the women in your life whose faith has stirred your heart to generous courage and defiant joy?

Some physicians wonder why people don’t talk to one another about vaccines. They remain shocked at other people’s beliefs. This is on both sides. “You believe what?!!! No way! I cannot believe that YOU believe that!” How on earth is talking like that going to build a bridge?

I’m not a vaccinologist or an ID doc. I’m a pediatric critical care doc. But I’m paying attention to the landscape of vaccines. The discussion is everywhere. In the hospital, it’s probably one of the most common topics in hallways among friends. The docs I know are trying to feel each other out about their positions on the controversies, and are trying to get a sense for where all this is headed. There might be an offhand joke about Trump, or a comment about RFK, or a link to an inflammatory news article in a group text thread. Some people have a stomach for debate and honest opinion. Some would rather that the whole thing go away. Most of the pediatric residents I teach are scared to read the controversial literature or examine the current challenges to vaccine orthodoxy and develop their own opinions and judgments. I think they should read and wade into the controversies because their patients’ families will not be afraid to bring this up in the exam room. I don’t think most of the Gen Peds residents want to threaten their patients with dismissal for foregoing a vaccine. I prefer to think that they would like to engage their families with understanding and nuance. I see a need for the discussions to be blown open. Way wide. And for there to be a genuine debate with mutual respect.

The AAP, Hotez, and Offit were all invited to participate in the latest ACIP deliberation over the Hep B vaccine at birth. They said, “Nope. We’re not going to play politics.” You don’t like the current makeup of the ACIP, so you refuse to deliberate and make your position known in the record of the proceedings? And the AAP wonders why there is vaccine hesitancy (TM). By the way, in my opinion, that’s not a great example to young physicians who are shaping their own judgments and learning what to stand up for.

RSV season is upon us. A colleague of mine sent me this article (styled as a review) about the current landscape for RSV prevention:

I took a look at the article. I appreciate that it helps paint the scope of RSV. The burden of disease-related morbidity in wealthy countries pales in comparison to that in poor countries. They don’t mention that about 120 million children are born worldwide each year. They do mention that there are 33 M cases a year. 3 M hospitalizations a year. 100 K deaths a year. They don’t mention that it equals a case fatality rate of 0.3% (all comers). They are picky and choosy with the statistics that they report.

I’m critical of the article. Two reasons.

One: A (most substantial) problem in poor countries and states, all over the world is access to clean water, sanitation, and healthcare. Vaccine delivery relies on existing healthcare infrastructure. The consequences (mortality) of RSV in infants the world over are a consequence of these factors that conspire together (Figure 2 in the paper confirms this, in my opinion). The money that gets put into vaccination schemes to vaccinate every pregnant mother and child born anywhere in the world..... where does it come from? How does it benefit the infrastructure for healthcare? These issues aren’t the goal of the paper. I think the goal of the paper is to secure more funding for GAVI (the global vaccine alliance founded by the Bill Gates Foundation). The authors of this paper are prescriptive for how WHO policy is translated into national policy, and the policy with respect to RSV is Vaccine and Ab distribution. Just read the second half of the paper. It speaks for itself.

Two: Traditional vaccine development has led to immune system priming that worsens disease in children who have been vaccinated. It’s been tried not once (1970s), but twice (2010s). So.... There’s still only monoclonal antibody for (high-risk) infants and children in the US. Despite this, the paper touts:

“The RSV vaccine and mAb landscape is continuously changing, and recent breakthroughs in delivering novel RSV preventive strategies have led to RSV disease being preventable (figure 1).”

No references for that statement. They conspicuously don’t reference NEW approaches to vaccine development here. They just present a schema for the delivery of their model in Figure 1. That’s like saying, “Because we’ve learned something - we know how to make this preventable.”

As I see it, they are still in the same place they have always been. They’ve learned what they can’t do, or shouldn’t do. Learning what you shouldn’t do is a step in the right direction. It refines your aim. But so far, traditional vaccine models for RSV have made kids sicker, not healthier. They’ve got A LOT MORE bench work to do before they are in a position to promise that they finally have a vaccine-oriented approach to solving the RSV problem for infants and children.

I’ll grant maybe one new (runaround) development. It’s vaccinating the mother while she’s pregnant. (They avoid using the term mother. Instead, it’s “pregnant persons”. Nice.) Vaccinating pregnant mothers is a whole other topic.

The epidemiology of morbidity and mortality for RSV is NOT LIKE polio or smallpox. The paper gives broad statistics, but avoids making the needed calculations to properly frame the problem of RSV. For example, they don’t mention the case fatality rate, which they should. They just talk about absolute numbers and don’t stratify the case fatality rate across economic cohorts. They illustrate how there are more out-of-hospital deaths in poor countries, but they don’t talk about why improving healthcare infrastructure and clean water projects should be a higher priority than RSV vaccine distribution in these countries or regions.

I don’t buy the argument that the deaths would be prevented if we just had a better RSV vaccine or more RSV vaccine funding. I think that the case fatality rate would plummet if there were access to healthcare in areas that experience a high burden of death at home. Vaccines and monoclonal antibodies can be a part of the solution. But they are not the bedrock of the solution for RSV. And blanket administration of either monoclonal antibody or traditional vaccine to every infant and pregnant mother throughout the world is a fool’s errand in my opinion, and an enormous waste of public funds. These interventions should be targeted to risk (complicated pregnancy, preterm birth, and children with prematurity and comorbidities). The money that is vacuumed up from public health funds to finance this approach on the backs of healthy infants and children should be redirected to improving healthcare infrastructures where they are broken or nonexistent. See below for more references about the priorities of sanitation and hygiene.

The critiques need to be heard. Even though what’s being debated and revisited in the ACIP is not RSV vaccine policy, the two issues are related. What is going on, broadly speaking, is a large-scale examination of policy and philosophy. If the AAP, Offit, and Hotez really believe in the merit of their philosophical stance on this, they should engage. It’s not courageous to tuck tail and claim, “Politics!” when they are invited to address broad and specific criticisms about the structure of vaccine policy to the current advisory committee on vaccines. Global proposals for RSV prevention, or other infectious disease prevention proposals, should be debated with respect to the context in which these diseases exist. Ideas matter. Circumstance matters. Ideas and beliefs drive behavior and policy. The critiques need to be debated, rebutted, and refined if there are to be improvements in the way vaccines are developed and administered.

References:

1. Risk Factors for the Development of Severe or Very Severe Respiratory Syncytial Virus-Related Lower Respiratory Tract Infection in Indian Infants: A Cohort Study in Melghat, India. Crow R, Satav A, Potdar V, et al. Tropical Medicine & International Health : TM & IH. 2024;29(7):612-621. doi:10.1111/tmi.14003.

2. Risk Factors for Respiratory Syncytial Virus Lower Respiratory Tract Infections: Evidence From an Indonesian Cohort. Crow R, Mutyara K, Agustian D, Kartasasmita CB, Simões EAF. Viruses. 2021;13(2):331. doi:10.3390/v13020331.

3. Population-Based Incidence of Severe Acute Respiratory Virus Infections Among Children Aged <5 Years in Rural Bangladesh, June-October 2010. Nasreen S, Luby SP, Brooks WA, et al. PloS One. 2014;9(2):e89978. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0089978.

4. Shaaban FL, Groenendijk RW, Baral R, Caballero MT, Crowe JE Jr, Englund JA, Esteban I, Hirve S, Jit M, Kalergis AM, Karron RA, Lukacs N, Martinon-Torres F, Mejias A, Nair H, Nisar MI, Nyiro JU, Pecenka C, Sparrow E, Srikantiah P, Thwaites RS, Zar HJ, Bont LJ. The path to equitable respiratory syncytial virus prevention for infants: challenges and opportunities for global implementation. Lancet Glob Health. 2025 Dec;13(12):e2165-e2174. doi: 10.1016/S2214-109X(25)00379-1. Epub 2025 Nov 3. PMID: 41197645.

5. Bangura JB, Xiao S, Qiu D, Ouyang F, Chen L. Barriers to childhood immunization in sub-Saharan Africa: A systematic review. BMC Public Health. 2020 Jul 14;20(1):1108. doi: 10.1186/s12889-020-09169-4. PMID: 32664849; PMCID: PMC7362649.

It’s Thanksgiving, 2025.  May your time with family be blessed.  May your hearts be moved with gratitude for all the good that the Lord has done.  The year is coming to a close.  It is fitting to look at what has come about, personally, and corporately.  And to glean the grain from the growth.  It is a gift.

In the Roman right, this week the Church reads the book of Daniel.  There is much in the readings presented in the lectionary.  There is even more in the readings NOT presented in the lectionary.  Reading from chapter to chapter, Daniel is revealed as a man of discipline, fellowship, and witness to God’s goodness.  The power of testimony and fearless faith is also revealed in the story of Daniel and his companions.

Daniel saw himself as a man set apart.  He conspired with a group of friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, from the tribe of Judah, to keep themselves set apart for the Lord’s portion….  Even in Babylon.  Imagine that.  Taken from your homeland.  Captive.  And convinced that you still belong to the Lord for His good purpose.  Because he sees that he is set apart, Daniel disciplines himself to a practice of honor, refusing to eat the rich fare from the king's table.  

“But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the royal rations of food and wine; so he asked the palace master to allow him not to defile himself. Now God allowed Daniel to receive favor and compassion from the palace master.”  Daniel 1:8,9  

Just vegetables and water.  To the astonishment of the palace master, Daniel and his companions grew in wisdom, physical strength, and luster.  Daniel and his companions received wisdom, and the gift of the interpretation of dreams.  Daniel’s prophetic gift was without comparison in Persia.  

You probably know most of the stories. Daniel is the only one who can interpret King Nebuchadnezzar's dream.  He and his companions refuse to worship the statue the King has made of himself and are thrown into the Seven Times Hot Fiery Furnace, only to hold court within the furnace with a mysterious One who is like a Son of Man.  They survive unscathed.  In the subsequent reign of Belshezar, Daniel interprets the meaning of the mysterious hand that writes upon the palace wall, warning Belshezar of his doom for dishonoring the sacred vessels of the Jerusalem temple that were taken as booty from the Israelites.  Subsequent to Belshezar’s death, Daniel befriends Darius the Mede, King of the Persians.  Through the lying traps set by scholars to convict Daniel for his faithfulness to the One True God, Darius is compelled to throw him into the lion’s den for a night.  Daniel, survives at the intervention of angels and is restored to honor under Darius’s command.  Darius proclaims for his entire kingdom: 

For he is the living God, enduring forever. His kingdom shall never be destroyed, and his dominion has no end. He delivers and rescues, he works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth; for he has saved Daniel from the power of the lions.

– Darius the Mede in Daniel 6:27.

Daniel and his companions illustrate the power of holy fellowship. Early in their royal service, Daniel and his companions come to the rescue of the royal magicians and wisemen who were on the hook for divining Nebuchadnezzar's dream and interpreting it.  Hearing that their slaughter was possible, Daniel brings his companions together and they implore the Lord for the grace to do the impossible.  They spend the night in prayer, and ask for the gift of delivering the prophetic word needed.  Daniel’s dream interpretation is not just for Nebuchadnezzar.  It’s for all of us.  The stone that supersedes all other kingdoms?  What is it?  The Stone that the builders have rejected has become the Cornerstone.  Had they not prayed together, would they have received the grace and been disposed to approach the vengeful Nebuchadnezzar with the Word of God?  Where two or three are gathered, and agree on what they are to pray for, does not the Lord listen?

Daniel is a sign to a people not his own.  He outlives several kings, and repeatedly testifies to the power of the Lord to a powerful pagan community that knows not the God of Israel.  Daniel did not live a relatively free life in Jerusalem.  He lived in captivity and service to the kings of Babylon.  And yet he saw himself as a beloved son of God, set apart for His praise, His worship - come what may.  Lions closed their mouths.  A furnace became a playground for fellowship with the Son of Man.  Kings praised the God of Israel, all because of Daniel’s faithfulness, enduring gratitude, and fearless courage.

Daniel ranks high!  All for the glory of God.  This pattern is seen many times in both the Old and New Testaments.  Joseph son of Jacob.  Judas Maccabeus.  Moses.  Joseph of Nazareth. 

Where are we?  What are you and I set apart for?  Do we know that the Love God has for us is real, eternal, and calling us to a greater loving and courageous witness?  We are called on to a greater fruitfulness, a greater gift, and a deeper friendship with one another and with our Lord.

“The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.” 

Abraham Lincoln, A Thanksgiving Proclamation 1863

The more I travel back and forth to my work, the more the Lord puts me in touch with other men who long for faith, connection, and encouragement. The more I travel, the more my affection for my family grows, and I see with more clarity the call of the Lord to steward my children’s affection, youth, and promise with hope, faith, and a measure of loving detachment. In the past year, I have been surprised to recognize in my heart a deep ache for the souls of my children. I thank God for teaching this to me.

I have been sharing with men, married and unmarried, the trials of being a man. The longing for the affection of a woman. The understanding that love, encouragement, and sacrifice for those we love is the truest fulfillment of the longing we possess in our hearts. Yet we cannot do this in a vacuum, where this is expected of us but not recognized, encouraged, or seen. We have shared the truth that we have hearts, and that we long to be seen, loved, and to actually be in a position where we pour it out, where we give our lives to those who will benefit from our love and our sacrifice. Paul knows this. He says in Timothy 4, “I have finished the race, I have kept the faith!”

I am convinced there is a paradox in the heart of every man. A recognition of a greater call to run the race. To keep faith. Knowing that it will cost. It will be humiliating, at times. It will hurt, at times. And the truth is we cannot do this alone. We must have brothers and families to support us along the way. Yet, we can demand no strength from another to push us along the way. We can only do this with the faith that Christ goes before us. And the good of our families and friends depends on it. Paul writes, in Philipians 4: “I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. In any case, it was kind of you to share my distress.”

Men, we are meant to have ties. To be in a relationship of belovedness. Paul shows that the more we pour out in Faith through our love of Jesus, the more we shall enjoy the belovedness of those around us. It IS an act of faith to do this. There is a call, I’m convinced to consecrate our families, our marriages to the Lord, even if we experience hurt and rejection in these spaces. The Lord is capable of manifesting his Love through our hearts. He wants to grow His Body in his church. And he trusts you to pour out great love on those around you. He will fill you up.

Jonah is called by God to speak an uncomfortable word to uncomfortable people. He rebuffs the call and escapes. He purchases a one-way cruise ticket for Tarshish. The storm comes. Cast lots among the seamen indicate he is to blame. Knowing his part in the mess and the greatness of God, he admits to his shipmates: “I am a Hebrew, I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” To save those fearing their own destruction, they cast Jonah into the sea, and he sinks into the swirling darkness. The unthinkable happens. A beast of the depths takes him into its belly. There, Jonah prays:

Is this not an ancient account of what we call today a Near Death Experience (NDE). Is this not an account of purgatory? Having denied his call, facing the wrath of nature, and submitting to death, Jonah is received into a place where he might utter his prayer for salvation and be heard. God sends him back to accomplish the work he had always intended for Jonah.

This type of account is repeated in many testimonies collected and published by Protestant pastor John Burke in a book called Imagine Heaven. Some of those who experience death but return to life often describe finding themselves in an outer darkness and experiencing from within the cry to God to be saved from the darkness. They describe experiencing a light from beyond the darkness come to them, and through a just mercy, they also experience the purging of resistance and reluctance to do what they have been made for. They return to life in the flesh, transformed by their experience, encouraged by the knowledge of a greater love than they could imagine, and they set out to do God’s will.

If this is not purgatory, then what is it? My wife, who has meditated on purgatory after reading Jesuit Father Schoupe’s book, is convinced that many of the accounts John Burke presents are accounts of the loving mercy of God encountered in purgatory. If there is no place where souls go to receive the mercy of God and to be lovingly purged of their reluctance to cooperate with Him, then what are the accounts in John Burke’s collection of testimonies describing? If this is not Sheol - the place of the dead - then what is it? It’s clearly not Heaven. And it certainly doesn’t seem like Hell. Is it the heart of the earth? The roots of the mountains?

I am not a theologian. I am not a scholar of these topics. I’m just a pediatrician. I believe in God’s word. I believe in the saving work of Christ, and I believe in Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. How can God manifest his just mercy in this place of darkness? I would submit it is because Christ claimed it.

Humpback whale swallows kayaker before releasing him: Video | AP News

Several years ago, my family and I watched the movie about William Wilberforce, Amazing Grace. Seeking recently to dig into the relatively obscure accounts of historically important black men and women, I remembered the portrayal in the movie of a somber African who spoke little but impressed Wilberforce with the weighty need to abolish the slave trade. He dropped leaden shackles on the table at a distinguished dinner party that Wilberforce was attending. He had been invited for testimony. His presence was shocking, and his silence astonishing.

Equiano wrote an account of his own life in the fourth decade. It remains available in different formats, studied mainly in academic circles where there is interest in history, slavery, and African studies. I daresay it merits study in larger circles by virtue of its honesty, its courage, the drama involved, and the strength of character of its author.

The raw adventure in the pages of his memoir rivals some of the most riveting fiction. The hand of Providence is as certain a character as it is in The Lord of the Rings. The goodness of Olaudah’s character does not manifest as varnished piety, but as tested mettle that was oriented to a greater purpose, surviving the harsh brutality and chastisements of dehumanizing servitude. His character shines, transformed by the greatness of God’s mercy.

He credits many friends for their friendliness, affection, and principle along the course of his life. I don’t believe I have come across a more interesting, compelling, and inspiring life story in the last decade. The horrors of slavery and human trafficking left a lifelong impression on his mind and soul that is best understood in terms of the struggle for power, the clash of customs, the violent mistreatment of women and children, and the usurpation of wealth.

As a child, Olaudah was kidnapped during a raid on his village by another African community. Torn from the embrace of his sister, he was sold into slavery with the British and landed eventually in Barbados. Olaudah—writing as a man eventually educated in the customs and refinements of the British—underscored the natural beauty and virtue of his native cultural inheritance, offering a stark counterexample to the barbarity of British and American slavers.

His adventures carried on as he was taken to Virginia and then to England. As a young man, he entered indentured service in the Royal Navy, finding himself under the command of great admirals. Warfare on the seas became part of his life such that he lost all fear of modern warfare. “I was so far from being afraid of any thing new which I saw, that, after I had been some time in this ship, I even began to long for a battle. My griefs too, which in young minds are not perpetual, were now wearing away; and soon I enjoyed myself pretty well, and felt tolerably easy in my present situation.” (Equiano 33)

His intelligence and knowledge of the seas made him too valuable to his slavers to mistreat him and risk losing his expertise. He developed friendships with Europeans who were interested in science and exploration and found himself along for the ride - as far as the Arctic. All the while, his soul burned with the cause of slaves, a longing for self-determination, and abolishing the trafficking of human beings. He purchased his freedom, not once, but twice.

The narrative arc of his life deepened spiritually as the account unfolded. He encountered the Lord both in the depth of his soul as well as in the dreams of the night. He was shipwrecked and cast the hopes of his heart on the Lord, saving not only himself but the entire despairing crew, losing none. Finally a free man, he was confronted with his own wretchedness and the glory of the sacrifice of Christ: “I saw the Lord Jesus Christ in his humiliation, loaded and bearing my reproach, sin, and shame. I then clearly perceived that by the deeds of the law no flesh living could be justified… It was given me at that time to know what it was to be born again John iii. 5.” (Equiano 121) He tells of the great gift that a community of believing and joyful Christians is. In a community of Methodists of which John Wesley and George Whitefield were a part, he found fellowship, encouragement, catechesis, love, and the conviction that Christ had done all the work necessary for his life to be redeemed.

Since reading his account, I have discovered much online scholarship dedicated to his cause. The Wikipedia page is extensive. A beautiful and semi-exhaustive online repository titled “Equiano’s World” was created by the Harriet Tubman Institute at York University. Many web-based resources detail the struggle for the abolition of slavery and the many relationships that Equiano had in British and Caribbean Society. But none of them account for the spiritual dimension that was explicitly highlighted by Equiano himself, which gave him the strength, dignity, and conviction to take, defend, and maintain his opposition to the degradation of men and women by the slave trade.

I personally find his account of reverence for the goodness of God and the redemption of Jesus to be the most moving aspect of his entire account. He highlighted the power of the name of God. He condemned blasphemy. He took himself to account for cursing the fate of his wrecked ship. He realized the prophetic nature of his dreams. He attributed his life to the ways of God’s providence and the kindness of others along his journey. He doubled down on his conviction that slavery was just as dehumanizing to slaves as it is to slavers. He engaged in politically risky movements to bring the slave trade to its abolition. And he secured enduring friendship with others in British society equally committed to bringing the whole economic and legal scaffold down. These moral and spiritual aspects are the most compelling parts of his account. For any young man who wants to calibrate his journey to manhood according to men who have trod tough roads, have wrestled with themselves and others, have endured ignominious contempt, sabotage, and torture, and still have come out standing tall, redeemed, and filled with grace, I recommend without reservation The Interesting Narrative by Olaudah Equiano.

Work Cited

Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: Or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015.

The link is here:

We’ve been here before. Again, and again, and again….

It’s like we don’t really care. Money and Time. Content for sale.

PB