Sturtz Stuff

Franklin's kite-lightning experiment changed things as we have seen over the last two posts. What I would like to offer here are some possible implications for those people who are followers of Jesus or a church leader. Perhaps by looking at this past event we might discover some lessons for our current cultural moment.  What does this make possible? That is a question that often goes unasked and thus unexplored. Yet we have heard stories that illustrate the asking of this question. We have heard stories about people who have overcome all kinds of physical and mental challenges. Often because they explored what was possible. If their legs did not work, they explored the use of their arms. If their eyes did not work, they examined the use of their hands and ears. When people have experienced failures in life many found new life in exploring what opportunities that failure created. Perhaps a chance to start over. Maybe it gave them a renewed sense of purpose. It alerted them to a met...

If you remember the story of Ben Franklin and his lightning experiment, do you remember the part about protracted theological objections? Me either.  Benjamin Franklin was many things during his lifetime. Among other things he was a scientist, writer, inventor and diplomat. He was also a slave owner and a founding father of America. Around the month of June in 1752 Franklin launched a kite into some storm clouds and made history. Will either he did or someone else did. Franklin was well known for his meticulous notes on each experiment that he performed. Interestingly, Franklin seems to have never made any notes about the kite-lightning experiment.1 So who knows. Prior to his kite-lightning experiment, Franklin had done considerable work attempting to understand electricity. In fact Franklin had achieved a kind of popular notoriety among his scientific contemporaries that he was perhaps the Galileo or Newton of his time. Our modern understanding of electricity and lightning are gre...