Off the road, finally. Tonight I read several pieces in Christianity Today that made me think about the pursuit of God.

Eugene Peterson, the poet and theologian who wrote The Message, an elegantly worded bible paraphrase, wrote on the necessity to slow our pace and not be in such a pressurized hurry to engage in spirituality, a word he hates. He believes that the pursuit of God in Christ is usually not that flashy. He points out that the occasional ecstasy of the saints of the church is often a huge surprise to them. He gave an example story of St. Theresa of Avila feasting in the kitchen, gnawing on chicken bones. When asked what she was doing there chowing down, she reportedly said, "When I eat chicken, I eat chicken. When I pray I pray, I pray." Some days our pursuit of Christ is mundane. Yet it seems so right. Yet, in the between moments, bracketing our prayer, our lives are so unexceptional.

Allistair McGrath has an article, a book digest actually, on the twilight of atheism. Why hadn't I noticed how out of gas atheism had become. It was so obvious, now that he points it out, that there is no intellectual vigor in atheism that is not directly attributable to the energy of being opposed to Christianity. There's nothing else there!

But the piece de resistance was the article on revival in France! This is not a typo. French evangelicalism is thriving. Christianity is being restored in the home of secular humanism. It was so exciting reading about the street evangelists in Paris and their experiences. Christianity Today is very broad, unlike Touchstone. It reports on Messianic Jews in Paris as well as charismatic Catholics, who use evangelicals as religion teachers in what were Catholic churches. I think the French can respond to holiness. They need an affective Christian worldview to tear through the intellectuals. Come Holy Spirit.

My prayer and meditation suffered on my trip and I had a serious slip in the Internet category in Boston that garbaged up my computer with a pesky parasite. Pray for me.