Podcast appearances and mentions of John F Ross

I loved this conversation. For this episode my guest Alex is a grade 11 student at John F Ross, who I met on an outing with The Village of Riverside Glen. Alex has been volunteering there for two years, and Alex's great grandmother was a previous guest on my radio show, which was a cool coincidence I didn't know at the time we met. I thought it would be interesting to interview Alex to hear the perspective of a young person who frequents spends time with the residents at Riverside Glen, to see where we share parallel perspectives, and where things are very different. But the conversation turned out far more fascinating, with Alex having an unusual past, starting with a diagnosis of severe anxiety at age 4, and not attending school for the first time until grade 3, but now excelling in high school. Alex is super interesting and I enjoyed our conversation so much, feeling a lot of kinship while also having a window in a very different experience. I'm enjoying getting to have candid and honest conversations about anxiety. Thank you Alex for being up for this conversation, I hope listeners enjoy it as much as I did!This interview was originally recorded on Oct 17th, 2024 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bridgingthesocialdistance.substack.com

On August 19, 1662, French philosopher, mathematician, and apologist Blaise Pascal died at just 39 years old. Pascal, despite his shortened life, is renowned for pioneering work in geometry, physics, and probability theory. His most powerful legacy, however, involves the ways he engaged with life's biggest questions.   Pascal's intellect garnered attention at an early age. At 16, he produced an essay on the geometry of cones so impressive that René Descartes initially refused to believe it could possibly be attributed to a “sixteen-year-old child.” Later, Pascal advanced the study of vacuums in the face of a prevailing (and misplaced) belief that nature is completely filled with matter, and thus “abhors a vacuum.”   In 1654, his work on probability took a new turn when he was sent a brainteaser by a friend. Applying mathematics to the problem, Pascal laid out rows of numbers in a triangle formation, a formation that now bears his name. As author John F. Ross described,   Here was the very idea of probability: establishing the numerical odds of a future event with mathematical precision. Remarkably, no one else had cracked the puzzle of probability before, although the Greeks and Romans had come close.  In 1646, Blaise Pascal encountered the kindness of two Jansenist Christians caring for his injured father. Their love in action earned Pascal's admiration. Then, on the evening of November 23, 1654, Pascal experienced God's presence in a new and personal way, which he described on a scrap of parchment that he sewed into his jacket and carried with him for the rest of his life:   FIRE—God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and scholars. Certitude, certitude. Heartfelt joy, peace. God of Jesus Christ. My God and thy God. Thy God shall be my God.   In his writing, Pascal's notions of probability met his faith in God. A compilation of his collected manuscripts was published after his death in a volume entitled, Pensées, or “Thoughts.” Best known is his famous “wager” that, facing uncertainty and in a game with such high stakes, it makes far more sense for fallen human beings to believe in God's existence than doubt it. “If you gain,” he wrote, “you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.”  Pascal also offered among the keenest diagnoses of humanity:   The human being is only a reed, the most feeble in nature; but this is a thinking reed. It isn't necessary for the entire universe to arm itself in order to crush him; a whiff of vapor, a taste of water, suffices to kill him. But when the universe crushes him, the human being becomes still more noble than that which kills him, because he knows that he is dying, and the advantage that the universe has over him. The universe, it does not have a clue.  Or, even better:   What a Chimera is man! What a novelty, a monster, a chaos, a contradiction, a prodigy! Judge of all things, an imbecile worm; depository of truth, and sewer of error and doubt; the glory and refuse of the universe.  He also described our moral conditions as human beings,  “[W]e hate truth and those who tell it [to] us, and … we like them to be deceived in our favour” (Pensées 100).  Apart from God, Pascal observed, people distract themselves from the reality of death. But the diversions run out, and then mankind   feels his nothingness, his forlornness, his insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptiness. There will immediately arise from the depth of his heart weariness, gloom, sadness, fretfulness, vexation, despair. (Pensées 131)  “Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world” (Pensées 213 ).  With a poetic nod to his work on vacuums, Pascal concluded:  What is it then that this desire and this inability proclaim to us, but that there was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace …? But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself.   A generation later, as waves of the Enlightenment swept over Europe, the continent's most prominent thinkers could not escape Pascal's brilliance. According to philosopher Dr. Patrick Riley,  Holbach, as late as the 1770s, still found it necessary to quarrel with the author of the Pensées, Condorcet, when editing Pascal's works, renewed the old debate; Voltaire throughout his life, and even in his last year, launched sally after sally at the writer who frightened him every time he—a hypochondriac—felt ill.   On the human condition in particular, the French Revolution would prove Pascal right and Voltaire wrong. Divorced from God and instead committed to the worship of “pure reason,” France devolved into a violent, anarchic wasteland.  Even today, Blaise Pascal's intellect, passion, and eloquence have lost none of their fire, dedicated as they were to the God who claimed his total devotion. As he wrote on the parchment sewn into his jacket,   Jesus Christ. I have fallen away: I have fled from Him, denied Him, crucified him. May I not fall away forever. We keep hold of him only by the ways taught in the Gospel. Renunciation, total and sweet. Total submission to Jesus Christ and to my director. Eternally in joy for a day's exercise on earth. I will not forget Thy word. Amen.  This Breakpoint was co-authored by Kasey Leander. If you enjoy Breakpoint, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org. 

Our shared stories have guided people of all faiths for thousands of years. How might our holy scriptures in the Bible provide a recipe for true, abiding hope in our contemporary times? Rev. Dr. John F. Ross, Executive Director of The Saint John's Bible Heritage Program will offer a few compelling answers based on the scriptures as experienced within The Saint John's Bible.

Our shared stories have guided people of all faiths for thousands of years. How might our holy scriptures in the Bible provide a recipe for true, abiding hope in our contemporary times? Rev. Dr. John F. Ross, Executive Director of The Saint John's Bible Heritage Program will offer a few compelling answers based on the scriptures as experienced within The Saint John's Bible.

The Reverend Dr. John F. Ross is the Executive Director of The Saint John's Bible Heritage Program at Saint John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota. The Heritage Program is an international initiative for individuals and institutions to explore the artistic and spiritual beauty of The Saint John's Bible—the first hand-written, hand-illuminated monumental Bible in 500 years. Prior to his work at Saint John's, he served for 18 years as the Senior Minister of Wayzata Community Church—a 3,000-member United Church of Christ congregation in Wayzata, Minnesota. John began his 30 years of ordained ministry at First Community Church, Columbus, Ohio where he was Senior Associate Minister for 12 years. John received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1989 from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He completed his Master of Divinity in 1995 at the Methodist Theological School of Ohio, and his Doctor of Ministry in May 2004 through the Chicago Theological Seminary. John is married to his college sweetheart, Sheila, and together they enjoy a full and fast-paced life with their four grown kids: Brady, Madeleine, Anne Marie, and Logan.

As the machine of Manifest Destiny churned west in the late 1800's, John Wesley Powell dedicated his life to understanding the region's complexities, fueling his passionate warnings to the U.S. Congress that the stories of a verdant Eden had little basis in fact. Were these lands to be settled with European-style sedentary agriculture, he urged that one would need to proceed with extreme caution as there “was not sufficient water to irrigate all this arid land.”In this episode, Ten Across founder Duke Reiter talks to historian and author John F. Ross about Powell's prophetic work and perilous adventures as an explorer and ardent scientist—what he knew to be true about America's drought prone region, why nobody listened, and what can still be learned today.For more information about the Ten Across initiative visit www.10across.com.

The federal government has declared a water shortage on the Colorado River. How did we get here? We hear what the future holds for water in the West. John Fleck and John F. Ross join Kimberly Atkins Stohr.

For Episode 25 of Gryph Nation Radio, we chat with a pair of outstanding Gryphon varsity coaches, as Colette McAuley (Gryphons women's rugby) and Megan Reid (Gryphons women's basketball) stop by the podcast.The focus of our conversation with Colette and Megan centers around female coaching opportunities in sport, as we explore some of the history, obstacles and benefits when it comes to female coaches in sport. Both Colette and Megan are important voices in the "She Can Coach" initiative, with both taking part in the Gryphons women in sports series (highlighted by a live, online event on Dec. 8, 2020). Colette McAuley has served as head coach of the Gryphons women's rugby program since 2007, and has helped establish the Gryphons as a perennial power in U SPORTS women's rugby. A three-time U SPORTS Coach of the Year, and six-time OUA Coach of the Year, Colette's decorated coaching credentials are complimented by an equally impressive background as a player. Colette was a two-sport star as a Gryphon (rugby and track), as well as a long-serving member of the Ontario Provincial team and National rugby squads. She represented Canada 21 times for the national Women's 15s, including a trip to the World Cup in 2002 and Canada Cups in 2001, 2003 and 2005. McAuley was a member of the National Women's 7s team for two years, winning tournaments in San Diego and Toronto, as well traveling with them abroad to Hong Kong, Dubai and Los Angeles. After a decade of contributions, she retired from the National team in 2007.Megan Reid is currently in her fourth season as an assistant coach with the Gryphons women's basketball team, and arrives at Guelph with a decorated coaching career at both the collegiate level (as the lead assistant of the Mohawk College women's basketball team) as well as the high school level (as a former head coach of the senior boys and senior girls basketball teams at John F. Ross Collegiate Vocational Institute in Guelph, where she led her teams to AAAA OFSAA appearances on four separate occasions). As a player, Megan split her varsity basketball career between York and Western, and was part of Mustangs teams that made back-to-back trips to nationals, including a CIS bronze medal in 1996.

In December 2019, Bill Kight interviewed author John F. Ross about The Promise of the Grand Canyon: John Wesley Powell's Perilous Journey and His Vision for the American West .

Bill Kight interviews author John F. Ross about The Promise of the Grand Canyon: John Wesley Powell's Perilous Journey and His Vision for the American West .

Original Recording Date: November 23rd, 2016 Guest: Chris Rowan, CFRU's High school Co-op Student Chris Rowan was our most recent Co-op Student. One day after a few of us went to John F. Ross to do a presentation about CFRU with him for his class, he accompanied me back to the Mobile Site to see what it is all about. We ended up having a chat about our respective experiences in High school - him now, as a grade eleven, and me 16 years ago when I was in grade eleven. A lot has changed, and high schools are making some amazing progress, but it was pretty fantastic to see how much is universal for teenagers through time.

If there is any better way to promote a high school musical than a grade nine girl who LIVES for musical theatre, I can't think of what it might be. So much enthusiasm, so much passion, so much breaking into song. Check out John F. Ross' production of "FAME" Saturday and Sunday February 19th and 20th 2016, 7:30pm at Fox Auditorium.