Larry A. Mitchel

Having pursued the obligatory 3.7 careers per lifetime (or whatever that average is), I decided a few years back to retire. Let’s see – since I finished my first pass at graduate school, I have been a church pastor, conference evangelist, high school and then college religion teacher, concluding with a multifaceted stint (of about a quarter-century) in healthcare administration. My intellectual life has long been manifest in the intersection of religion and science. When I think about it, that part of my life-journey could well be seen to parallel my career journey. Maybe I will blog about that someday – it’s touchy. I approached retirement living very systematically and methodically, as is my wont. It will be interesting to examine the reality of retirement against the backdrop of my retirement planning. Oh – and though he may prefer not to admit it, Tim Berry and I go way back!

IT ALL STARTS WITH SCIENCE [Part 2]

Okay, so remember – when we left off, Prof. Emeritus Harold Clark had asserted that radiocarbon-based dates of once-living things were BS, since they gave us age-dates before the Great Flood of Noah, and even before the Creation of All Things (about 6,000 years ago)! Impossible! Besides the “evidence” from Genesis 7:14 (where “the floodgates … IT ALL STARTS WITH SCIENCE [Part 2]

IT ALL STARTS WITH SCIENCE [Part 1]

A little context first. This will seem on the surface a tempest in a teapot, where the tempest is the age-old conflict between science and religion, and the teapot is a middle-sized conservative American Christian denomination. It is those things, but it is also as universal as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, … IT ALL STARTS WITH SCIENCE [Part 1]

UNEXAMINED NOOKS AND CRANNIES

First the inventory, then the point. In the smallish cupboard below our built-in micro-wave and regular ovens there is the most interesting and curious assortment of stuff. There are two white plastic baskets, same size, side by side. The left-side basket is completely unremarkable and thus uninteresting: Plastic bags and small paper bags awaiting re-use. … UNEXAMINED NOOKS AND CRANNIES

Another Long Slow Goodbye

[Written 17 December 2016] My wife’s mother just died two nights ago. She was diagnosed with vascular dementia quite a while ago, so . . . this was a surprise to none of us. I wasn’t with her that night, but my wife – her eldest daughter – was. But it has made me think. … Another Long Slow Goodbye

Oh To Be Young Again!

You’ve thought of it too, I know you have. “Man, wouldn’t it be great to know what I know now – and have the body of a 20-something!” More often than I care to admit, I have found myself introspectively thinking of myself as a 30 something, only to look in the bathroom mirror of … Oh To Be Young Again!