Have you read recently one of those warning sheets from the pharmacy on the terrible things that will happen to you if you take the pill you just bought? They are exceedingly grim, as you know. Who’s dreaming up this language, this strategy of communication? You harbor some lurking doubt whether your doctor knows about all of these awful consequences.

Here is a poem I have written recently. To be sure it says something about where I am in life, this amazing stage of new beginnings, the opening of a new chapter, a season of contentment, one without the relentless responsibilities and burdens of formal work. I am talking here about an end I can almost see, but I am also talking about the exhilarating new energy stirring within, for one last in-between time.

The new Pope is giving all kinds of signals that humility is the highest measure of great leadership. The seductions in other directions must be enormous: the sudden rush of standing on the world stage; the glitter of the ancient garb; the adoration of the faithful. Can you imagine the exhilaration of stepping up to the balcony window to speak to 250,000 cheering people? Surely the Pope felt the sheer power of it all, for just a moment at least.

I am watching the developments within the Catholic Church with intense interest these days. While I am decidedly Protestant—by upbringing, church attendance, reading through the years, understanding of church history—I believe Christians everywhere should be pulling for the Catholic Church to be strong and vibrant and effective.

We need some answers these days. We need answers to some of our lingering, seemingly intractable problems that surround us. We need a vision out of the morass. We need to simplify some of the complexity in which we have entangled ourselves.

Sharon and I are watching the first year’s series of Downton Abbey over Netflix. What a treat. We missed the whole first two years because of our crazy schedule, on the road, out for the evening, never at home at the right time. We are just about finished with year one. What pleasure it has been.

Taxes are in the news these days. Throughout the presidential election, and subsequently during the fiscal-cliff debate, we held a grand national debate on taxation. Should we tax more? Or not? Is taxing damaging to our economy, or not? Will new taxes actually increase revenue and reduce our deficit, or not?

I am writing a new book I am tentatively calling A Radiant People: The Christian Path Toward A Better World. The book is framed in part by that marvelous passage from Jeremiah imagining that we “shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord.” Radiant people, it seems to me, have discovered the goodness of the Lord. That makes them radiant. That causes them to be good, to be kind and gentle and forgiving. That causes them to shine this goodness into the world. It makes the world better. It makes them better people.

I am constantly saying that an understanding of culture is critical to understanding our world. This has always been the case, and remains true today, though with the unraveling of culture, we are left to ponder where the center has gone. The following quotation speaks beautifully to this dramatic shift.

Is it possible we might have a year without obsessive attention to politics? Is it possible that we might pause for a year and engage in things more consequential? Is it possible that we might push down into the roots of our troubles instead of assuming always that our political leaders have the answers, or that passing one more measure of legislation will bring an end to our malaise?

I’m not very optimistic about the year out ahead. That’s a hard statement for me to make. I always tend to be the optimistic one in the bunch. But there is some sort of malaise that has settled down on our planet, on our country, on our various communities. I keep looking for the right vision for what’s ahead, and most of what I see is trouble, uncertainty, even fear. And I look for the right kinds of leaders, but feel only a growing impatience for someone to show real depth and clarity and substance.

I trust you are off to a wonderful new beginning of 2013. As we look around our world, it is abundantly clear we have a lot of work to do. Things are a mess, aren’t they? We need to do a lot of thinking about how best to move forward. We need to roll up our sleeves to get the job done. I find myself eager to tackle these tasks in the year ahead.

The President of MIT, Rafael Reif, said recently in the Wall Street Journal, that because of the “upheaval today coming from the technological change posed by online education,” we find “higher education . . . at a crossroads not seen since the introduction of the printing press.” That is quite a claim! If true, it is remarkable news we must absorb.

I received comments on my last post on the “Christian university by the numbers” that leads me to believe I may not have been fully clear. My point was not that Seattle Pacific is failing to attract its share of students and needs to shift strategies. This is certainly not the case. SPU clearly is one of the most attractive Christian universities in the country. Nor was I saying that other fine Christian universities are failing to be attractive. Most of our premier institutions, like SPU, have by far more students than they can accommodate. Most importantly, most of these institutions are delivering incredible value.

Last spring, the presidents of the thirteen institutions in the Christian College Consortium were gathered at our annual meetings in Palm Desert. We were talking (enthusiastically) about the future of Christian higher education, as such Presidents tend to do, carrying on about the incredible value we have to offer our students, their families, and the world. We all believe that. We were quick to note how well things are going on our campuses. Presidents do that too, when they get together: Everything is always going great.

My mother told me never to call someone a liar. In our otherwise energetically verbal family, calling someone a liar was crossing a bright line. “Don’t go there, ever,” my mother would say. To call someone a liar was to make a statement about person, about character, about motives, and not about content. The person-part mattered in my family.

I feel sorry for those replacement refs. Wanting to be a replacement ref would be like me wanting to be the CEO of Boeing or Microsoft for a few weeks. This is cool, I might say for a time. The extra pay is helpful. The taste of real power is exhilarating.  But then suddenly, in the heat of a major decision—involving thousands of employees, millions of customers, investors ready to pounce—I would probably say, yikes, get me out of here. I’m in over my head.

David Brooks’ column today ends up being about the Chicago teachers’ strike. But what interests me most is his opening overview of the two tracks of our modern economy.Here is what he says:

For years I've sat through anguished discussions about why more women than men are going to college. A lot more in fact. In most colleges and universities these days the numbers are at 60% women, sometimes creeping even higher. We used to think this was a phenomenon of the Christian campus, that parents wanted their daughters to attend a “safe” college. Little did we know that we were on the front edge of a massive culture shift.