Motto:
"The simple act of an ordinary brave man is not to participate in lies, not to support false actions! His rule: Let that come into the world, let it even reign supreme—only not through me." 
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Good advice even for those of us less courageous than Solzhenitsyn. It should serve at least as a useful aspiration.

Paul E. Michelson is Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at Huntington University, where he began teaching in 1974, and was elected an Honorary Member of the Romanian Academy in February 2025. He has a BA in History (1967) from Emporia State University in Kansas where he studied with Glenn E. Torrey. He has an MA (1969) and a Ph.D (1975) in East European History with supporting fields in Russian History since 1500 and West European History since 1799 from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, where he studied with Barbara and Charles Jelavich, Norman J. G. Pounds, Robert Byrnes, William Cohen, and Gretchen Buehler. He has been three times a Fulbright fellow in Romania (1971-1973, 1982-1983, 1989-1990). His book, Romanian Politics, 1859-1871: From Prince Cuza to Prince Carol (1998) was selected by CHOICE MAGAZINE of the American Library Association as an Outstanding Academic Book for 1998 and was awarded the 2000 Bălcescu Prize for History by the Romanian Academy. He wrote the lead article on Romania for The Encyclopedia of East Europe: From the Congress of Vienna to the Fall of Communism  (2000), edited by Richard Frucht, which was selected by CHOICE Magazine as an Outstanding Academic Book for 2000. He is also an honorary member of the Romanian Academy Institutes of History at Iași, București, and Cluj.

His areas of interest and expertise include historiography, Romanian and Western European history in the 19th-21st Centuries, aspects of Romanian religious history, Totalitarian and post-Totalitarian societies, the History of Venice, and the writings of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the Inklings.

He is past President (2006-2009) and Secretary (1977-2015) of the Society for Romanian Studies and served as the Secretary of the Conference on Faith and History from 2004 to 2014; and is currently a board member of the C. S. Lewis and Kindred Spirits Society of Central and Eastern Europe.

KIDNEY TRANSPLANT BLOG

On June 24, 2020, I was privileged to receive a kidney transplant provided for me by my youngest son, Paul-Philip AKA Paco Michelson. I blogged about this from June 24, 2020, through the end of December 2022. For those with an insatiable or morbid curiosity, this blog can be perused here.

Since then I have done occasional updates. My five year check up was on June 23, 2025, and we were pleased to find that the borrowed kidney is functioning better than normal with a creatinine level of 0.84. Soli Deo Gloria.

RANDOM MEDITATIONS

(Most Recent First)

IV. Easter 2025: AND WITH SPRING, THE JOY OF THE EUCATASTROPHE COMES

We live in a world which, according to Max Weber, has been “disenchanted”...and then we wonder why life seems so mundane (pun intended). The Enchantments which lie at the core of Christianity come, of course, most into focus at Easter: the Mystery of Christ’s Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection. Taken together, these Easter Events are an enduring example of what J. R. R. Tolkien called the Eucatastrophe, an event of catastrophic good, of hope and joy.

C. S. Lewis put it this way in a September 1941 sermon entitled “The Great Miracle” in which he discussed the paradoxical miracle of the Incarnation. This combination of the divine and the human in Christ make “...the Christian story...precisely the story of one grand miracle, the Christian assertion being that what is beyond all space and time, what is uncreated, eternal, came into nature, into human nature, descended into His own universe, and rose again, bringing nature up with Him.”

The Eucatastrophe of Christ’s life and death has been celebrated for two millennia since by individual miracles which have enabled millions to fellowship in God, to embark on a paradoxical journey from mere experience to the truths expressed in doctrine, and into a relationship with an incredible personal God. Paul S. Fiddes writes about this in his book Participating in God (London, 2000). Fiddes observes “...our experience of ourselves and others must always be understood in the context of a God who is present in the world....In taking a path from experience to doctrine we are retracing a journey that God has already taken towards us. Theology is doxology, worship called out from those who have received the self-offering and self-opening of the triune God.” (pp. 8-9)

Fiddes draws our attention to the motivation of Augustine in his Confessions, who wrote “This person, this part of what you have created, desires to praise you. Indeed, you so provoke him that he delights to praise you...My faith, O Lord, calls upon you, faith which you have given me, which you have breathed into me through the humanity of your Son and the ministry of your preacher.” (p. 9)

From this relationship with the Triune God, Fiddes argues, we are invited into Christian community, to real personhood that is neither autonomous nor reductionist in the dualist choice forced upon us by the Enlightenment since the 18th century. This is “uniquely centered” on God, not “Self-centered,” dependent but not co-dependent. (see Ch. 2: “A Personal God and the Making of Community.”)

Nowhere has the problem of individual and community been more cogently addressed than by C. S. Lewis in his An Experiment in Criticism (Cambridge, 1965). In a beautiful piece of writing, Lewis points out that in addition to our individualism, “...we seek an enlargement of our being. We want to be more than ourselves....we want to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own. We are not content to be Leibnitzian monads. We demand windows....The man who is contented to be only himself, and therefore less a self, is in prison....Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege of individuality....in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.” (pp. 137-141)

Enchanted by the Triune God—the ultimate model of personhood and community—we celebrate the Easter triumph over death in the Hope and Joy of life everlasting. We find Hope in the defeat of the perverse enchantments of the Evil One who seeks to devour us and destroy our personhood and our communities. And we find Joy in the Gifts of the Spirit: joy, love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and faithfulness. (Galatians 5:22 ESV)

III. CHRISTMAS 2024: JUST SAY NO TO JEREMIADS

We live in an age of the jeremiad. What is a jeremiad? According to The Oxford Dictionary, a jeremiad is a polemical writing style named after the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah. If you are looking for a cheerful outlook on things, Jeremiah is not your man and you should avoid reading the book of Jeremiah or his Lamentations (a title that speaks for itself). Thus, a jeremiad is a “doleful complaint” a “tirade” caused by “grief or distress."

The temptation to join the jeremiad chorus is great because cultural tirades seem more and more apropos in a time with wars and rumors of wars, political and economic disasters seeming to loom on every hand, and countless other misfortunes appear ready to befall us daily. Another reason for the flourishing of such harangues is that if things actually turn out badly (as they have a good chance of doing), the prophet of doom will be regarded thenceforth as a shrewd, in-the-know person whose every utterance should guide our thoughts and behaviors. In addition, if things turn out better than expected, we all breathe sighs of relief and may even credit the merchant of gloom with having prevented worse from happening.

And being a skeptic pays off more than being an optimist. Viewing with alarm gets one more readers and additional listeners, click bait bites, and internet followers than predicting that all will be well. Ever wonder why there are no newspapers that print only good news? Now you know.

Our (non-jeremiad) question is: In a world filled with jeremiads, what are we doing to contribute to the uplifting and affirming Christ the Prince of Peace? “But what about Jeremiah the original Jeremiadist?” you ask. Doubtless he was following his calling from God. He was, after all, a prophet, one who foretells (prophesies) as well as one who forthtells (speaks out against the ills of society, religion, and morality). However, there is good reason to suspect that the majority of modern Jeremiahs are not called by God. They should, therefore, leave off of the polemics and get on with the task of finding out what God really has in mind for them.

To that end, we want to advance as Modest Proposal for Advent 2024 and the coming year that all of us “Just say no to Jeremiads.” Perhaps we can take heart from Pandora’s box (actually a jar), from which—classical mythology had it—all manner of bewildering and horrible evils (wars, plagues, death) flowed when inadvisedly opened. However, what most of us forget is that at the bottom of the jar there remained hope. Perhaps this was the ancients’ way of saying that even when hope seems to be fading and we are tempted to rail against others, all is not lost if we maintain a firm grip on resilience coupled with a reasonable optimism.

Many of us are fearful that we might be ridiculed for being too much like Pollyanna, an early 20th century fictional stereotype for someone excessively and insufferably cheerful. How about showing a little backbone and go against the tide? Concerned about being laughed out of the elite in-group (a group most of us aren’t in anyway and should get out of if we are)? The Apostol Paul was not joking when he pointed out that “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong...” (1 Corinthians 1:27 ESV) So the next time you feel like thundering forth like Jeremiah, try a little kindness and Christ-likeness instead. Forget about pandering to get into the elite and ruling inner rings and seek Peace and live in Peace with others.

Advent reminds us that hope usually arises from small beginnings, much as some mighty trees start from tiny seeds. There was a reason why the news media, the social commentators, the influencers, and the historians of first century Judaea seemed to overlook what happened in Bethlehem on that night a long time ago. Except for a bit of a flutter at the paranoid local King Herod’s palace, the legacy media completely missed what was happening when—according to the hymn-writer Phillips Brooks—“the hopes and fears of all the years” were met in the Incarnation of Christ. Though it was precisely the Advent and the subsequent Salvation story that turned out to provide the rational and affective foundation for Christian hope and the Christian message of peace and life, this slipped by the establishment virtually unnoticed.

Hear, then, and heed these comforting and dynamic words from Philippians 4: 4-9 (ESV): “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”

Practicing gentleness? Rejecting anxiety? Thinking about truth, honor, justice, purity, excellence? Really? Yes, really. Do these things and you will rejoice instead of ranting. This won’t cause our problems to vanish, but more good will, more civility, a little kindness, and seeking to be Christ-like might make us and life more agreeable...and might lead to more than that. May the God of Peace will be with you.

II. Fall 2024: PARADOXES OF AUTUMN

The coming of the September’s Autumnal Equinox heralds the advent of more and more silver days and fewer and fewer of the golden days of summer. Gone are the days of the Summer Solstice as we head inexorably toward the Winter Solstice. Though autumn offers the advantage of avoiding both the oppressively hot days of summer and the dauntingly cold days of winter, we know that these coolish-warmish days will not last, and, except for a few surprising flaxen interludes, the downward floating of crystalline flakes will not be long in coming. All too soon, we realize, the days will tend toward cooler metals, still occasionally burnished, but more and more empty as the sun rises later and later, and retires from the sky earlier and earlier.

Thus we both welcome and dread the coming of autumn and its paradoxical sentiments. Despite the waning of the year, let us enjoy the autumnal equinox whose spectral colors and russet hues still warm our elegiac hearts even while our bodies begin to sense the deepening chill of sunrise and the failing warmth of sunset. And as we do, let us also be of cheer for winter is not the end. Soon we will welcome the Vernal Equinox and begin the cycle once more. In the meantime, let us heed the injunction: “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow.” (The Message, Matthew 6:34)

I. Fall 2023: TOTTERING TOWARD HOPE or TEETERING BETWEEN HOPE & DESPAIR

A theme that emerged on my transplant journey was hope. There is no question that the events of the pandemic years have made hope an increasingly rare commodity. Though COVID19 seems to be moving toward normality, we still have plenty of reasons to be concerned: war in Ukraine, global inflation, escalating political polarization, and other issues, some imaginary or overblown or principally psychological in nature. We seem prone to teetering between hope and despair.

One of today's outstanding academic theologians, Paul S. Fiddes of Oxford University many years ago wrote a first rate essay entitled “The Signs of Hope,” which appeared in Keith W. Clements, et al., A Call to Mind. Baptist Essays Toward a Theology of Commitment (London: Baptist Union Press, 1981), pp. 33-45. In this essay, he called our attention to two kinds of hope: Secular hope and Christian hope. Secular hope is an extrapolation to the Future from the Present, a hope in what can reasonably be calculated in scientific terms from the Now derived from current trends. As financial analysts make certain to emphasize in their adverts, “past performance cannot guarantee future results.” And, also of course, logicians tell us that to to make straight line projections from the present to any point in the future is a classic fallacy. With secular hope frequently running off the cliff, it is no wonder that people alternate between doom and gloom and hope that proves vain.

Christian hope, on the other hand, is not a prediction of what the Future will be, but and anticipation of “the 'desirable future ' rather than the 'calculable future.'” This is what Jurgen Moltmann called the Theology of Hope, a “hope in a future which is radically different from the present, rather than merely being an extension of the conditions of the present.” However, “it is important to notice,” Fiddes writes, “that it is promise and not prediction….God always fulfills his promises, but he does so in unexpected ways.” This is the hope that the Apostle Paul referred to in 1 Corinthians 13, promises based on our faith in God.

Christian hope is not, as is sometimes charged, an irrational hope. 1 Peter 3:18 tells us that the Christian “should always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.” (ESV) This hope must be characterized by gentleness and respect. In short, it must be reflected in love for others.

Paul the Apostle, in 1 Thessalonians 5:21, further points out that what Christians have, or ought to have, is a discerning hope, testing everything and holding on to what is good. Lastly, as Peter goes on to tell us in 2 Peter 3:18, Christian hope is a product of what we might call “graceful knowledge.”

Reasonable. Gentle and respectful. Discerning. Expressing Graceful knowledge. These elements of Christian hope culminate, according to Fiddes, in the conviction that “God has a certain future in his purpose of reconciling all things with himself” and that “the content of that event depends upon the response of his creatures.” In the end, “It is an important perspective for the hope of the Church to know that God himself is hopeful.”

Thus, we should look for the signs of hope where ever we are, we should never despair, and we should share our hope with those around us.