Just who is in charge here, anyway? I’ve studied enough history to know there is a kind of terror that befalls a region when competing armies contend for territory–when the only protection you might have against fickle martial law, plunder, rape, and murder is the conscience of a battle-hardened sergeant who has been living off..
Tag: Faith
Brittle melancholies.. I’m only ten years old but there’s something in Karen Carpenter’s voice that sends me into a third heaven. I can feel sugar effervescing across my shoulders and down my arms. “White lace and promises, a kiss for luck and we’re on our way.” I don’t think I have the words, yet, to..
Why Believe? Most of our lives, we’re asked to believe true things that seem, on the surface, outlandish. If you had asked an American academic in 1985, whether the Berlin Wall would fall and the Soviet Union collapse, he and most of his colleagues would have sneered. The conventional guardians of our conventions — academics,..
The Man of “Science” I took a call years ago from one of my father’s business friends. We had Stanford in common; he had graduated a few decades before and his daughter was on her way there at the time. I recognized, in his voice, a kind of nerdy, technical view of the world. I..
Not sure if I’m all blogged out on the Pharisee spirit of the NeverTrump movement, (probably not) but I think it’s important to refute the empty-headed use of scripture. One NeverTrumper used these verses to justify political apathy, or, uh, something: It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man…
I have a soft spot for anyone seeking an explanation for the universe, and our place in it. I suppose that even includes the judgmental and the irritating, because the pursuit itself is desperate for self assurance. We’re all trying to box up our foggy doubts, to turn our spiritual conjecture into solid stepping stones,..
Some of you are completely unaware of your talent, and, frankly, it disgusts me. You’re one of those people who can just leap out of bed, pull on your shorts, and jump into your flip-flops, like it was nothing — like it was breathing or drinking a glass of water or taking in an effortless..
How I came to understand Christmas Even as a child, I was attracted to university catalogs and course guides. It was a nerdy obsession, to be certain, but it promised such a rosy menu of options. Colleges had a way of wrapping up an entire lifetime for you, in gift paper: Take Economics 101, then..