Paul Asay

If you’re a fan of The Lord of the Rings, or perhaps The Hobbit by J R R Tolkien you would have come across a land called The Shire. In Tolkien's fiction, the Shire is described as a small but beautiful, idyllic and fruitful land, beloved by its hobbit inhabitants. They had agriculture but were not industrialized. The landscape included downland and woods like the English countryside.   Families lived in a close community of friends and neighbors, often celebrating and having meals together.  He envisioned The Shire as a place of refuge in an otherwise chaotic and often dangerous world.  Sometimes I view The Shire a bit like living on South Lake within Sun City Center proper. Tolkien himself experienced chaos and extreme danger as a soldier in the first World War.  Barely surviving the Battle of the  Somme, spending months in recovery from Trench Fever.  The battle was one of the world's bloodiest battles, with one million casualties.   Withi...

  Becoming Aristotelian in 2025 Several years ago, I took one of the free courses provided by Hilldale College called “Introduction to Aristotle’s Ethics”.   Sounds rather high-brow, but it turned out to one of the best college courses I’ve ever taken.   The course condenses Aristotle’s deep dive into ethics to examine one question: How Best to Live. Turns out in its most simple form, Aristotle would likely say he who lives the most virtuous life lives the best life . So, who exactly was Aristotle? He is considered one of the three most famous philosophers from ancient Greece along with Socrates and Plato. He was born in 384 B.C. and became the authority on everything from philosophy to mathematics, politics, metaphysics, ethics and much more. He also served as the personal tutor to Alexander the Great.    What if we took a look at his key virtues and tried to apply those to ourselves for 2025? What would the outcome be? Some of his cardinal ethics/virtue...

This team stand here today among friends We may have been born in different countries, but we are the same Today we are going to talk a little bit about Jesus defining sermon It’s found in Matthew chapters 5, 6 and 7 It explains how a Christian should conduct themselves It sets a very high standard for all of us to follow This conduct is for every man, woman and child that professes to be a Christian No more important words have ever been spoken on earth before an audience At the start of this sermon Jesus mentions 9 specific Beatitudes A beatitude is a way to be blessed by God Do you want to be blessed by God, I do These blessing may not happen on this earth, but they will happen in heaven The sermon begins by Jesus sitting on a quiet mountain side with just his disciples So lets read the story: Read Matthew 5 1-12 Verse 3: blessed are the Poor in Spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven: which means you feel broken and can go no further Verse 4: blesse...

October 22, 2019 Pele Wala Village Sierra Leone Took the long way into the village and passed where we turned in before. Road we took last year was impassable. The greeting we received was just like last year, but even bigger. This time they did a native dance and drums. Overwhelming for sure. I quickly saw Fatmala that is sponsored by Ken Baker. So glad to see a friendly face among a few I knew. The local construction crew had the church walls up, and were working on the school as well which is right next door. Both just passed the well that was put in last year. We had introductions again under the big tree, couple of speech’s then walked down to where the school was under construction. Santos is the foreman leading the construction and the walls for the school was about half done. After that they had lunch for us and played with the kids. Watching the kids eat lunch was crazy. They went for the food like they haven’t eaten in a week. No knives, forks or spoons, they eat wi...

I'm a fan of wisdom literature, and the idea of how to live well.  Recently, via a friend I heard about The Bible Project and their use of visuals to tell a unified story.  Just this past week I watched the series they produced on Wisdom, and Living Well.  Came away very impressed with not only the product, but the method of production.  I would humbly call this a revolution on how to present timeless truths of the Bible in the modern world. The idea of this particular series is to present Wisdom in three separate forms from the unique books, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job.  Taken as a whole the insight from three perspectives is a brilliant take on a vastly important idea, How to Live Well. Here is a link to the series:  https://thebibleproject.com/explore/wisdom-series/ Here is a details background information on how it was produced:  https://d1bsmz3sdihplr.cloudfront.net/media/Quarterlies_Other%20Downloads/TBPq_003_digital.pdf   High...

Ever read the story of the Tower of Babel and not believe it to exist?  Facts show otherwise.  You can download my presentation of this  Tower of Babel Presentation