Update

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 Once upon a time , someone asked me if I would be happy working a job that was not at the university. Since my position at the university closed in 2020, I found myself doing exactly that— working in jobs not at the university. It has been a very difficult transition.  Recently, things shifted quickly and in unexpected ways. The short version is that I am leaving the hotel which I am currently working, having taken a position at another.  The longer version of the story is that I stopped by to see my good friend and former GM at his new hotel. While I was visiting with him, one of the owners came out and introduced himself and we got to talking. After a few minutes, he said he wanted me to meet his brother. Our conversation turned into a job interview and 48 hours later I accepted a new position as front desk, manager and assistant operations manager. After some negotiating, we reached an agreement and I start my new position on April 9. It’s a much nicer hotel and these...

Impossible, You Say?

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Montaigne confronts unbelief, arrogance and ignorance head-on in his short essay, “That it is Folly to Measure Truth and Error by Our Own Capacity.” He begins explaining that belief is in direct proportion to the malleability of the soul. Establishing this, he proves that we can’t say this or that is impossible on the grounds that we don’t have enough information. We should say instead that this or that is unusual. 


Reason dictates that “to condemn anything for false and impossible, is arrogantly and impiously to circumscribe and limit the will of God, and the power of our mother nature, within the bounds of my own capacity.”  He adds that, “to condemn them as impossible, is by a temerarious presumption to pretend to know the utmost bounds of possibility.” Belief is kept intact by judging “with more reverence, and with greater acknowledgment of our own ignorance and infirmity . . . “


So the next time someone says “that’s impossible” see what happens by asking “don’t you mean ‘unusual’?”


For further study: Matthew 17:30, 19:26; Mark 10:27; Luke 1:30, 18:27

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