Grateful for this anonymous piece: I became an orphan 37 years ago, somewhere in South Korea. I can’t be more specific — I don’t know when I was left, who left me, or even where. My orphanage paperwork only says that sometime that summer, “By request of [the police], we intook the child to be […]
Little Women and the Truth We’re Too Scared to Say
This response to the hit film comes to us from Grace Leuenberger. Back in August, the first trailer for Greta Gerwig’s Little Women was released to the world wide web. I watched it approximately fifteen times, enraptured by the casting, the energy, the excitement surrounding a new version of a movie I loved growing up. […]
A Primer for Staying Married at Christmas
Christmas is, as we say in our household, the season of BIG FEELINGS. Expect all of them from your spouse. And from yourself. Without judgement. The other night I realized our daughter called thermometers “mothers,” and I could not find a suitable amount of Kleenex. My husband looked perplexed and said, “Are you sure that […]
Reconciling Sorrow with Grace in Noname’s ‘Telefone’
When I remember memories don’t last forever When I deny my empty with an open letter Who gon remember me? My satellite, my empathy The wheels be chrome, chrome spiffy, the Lord with me My halo said goodbye and the floor hit me Fill the lining in the pine box, my granny fill the time […]
Best Couple Ever
The following comes to us from Will Ryan: My wife and I met when we were both going to seminary at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth. After we became engaged, we decided to get married in Texas because it would be easiest. Texas has a law/rule when it comes to marriage licenses: if you […]
The Death of Curiosity: On Information Cocoons and the Frights of Surprise
On September 11, 2001, I became a cable news junkie and would be crippled by the addiction for the next decade and a half. I remember sitting in the breakroom at my dental school with the other students, watching footage played and replayed of the planes hitting the towers, of the devastation at the Pentagon […]
Connection
For 30 years, I have designed places for people to live when they are at the edge of coping. When creating anything, knowing those who will use the creation makes the creation better. This year, I have been part of an effort to make a safe harbor for the young who are lost. Listening to […]
Therapy Time with Davie504
If you are not familiar with famous YouTuber Davie504, just ask one of the youth in your life and chances are they will know who you’re talking about. Davie504 is the smartest bass player in the world. Although the bass is not an instrument that gets a lot of attention, somehow Davie504 has created a […]
A Parent Trap in Ghana and the Double Bind of the Law
This one comes to us from Ryan Alvey. So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good. (Rm 7:12) For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a […]
PZ’s Podcast: Achilles Heel; They Came from Beyond Space; Listen to the Music; Sine Qua Non; and Julie, Do You Love Me
Episode 283: Achilles Heel It seems that human nature, or rather, one’s understanding of human nature, is the Achilles Heel of theology — and philosophy, too — throughout the “Spin-Me-Round” (Dead or Alive, 1985) of cyclical human history and cyclical failed answers to the problem of being human. If you have a high doctrine of […]
Boys Will Be Boys (and Other Dodgy Excuses)
I stood a few steps away from my young daughter at a playground, watching her wait patiently as all the boys dashed in front of her and repeatedly took her toys away. Sometimes they would ask, but usually not. I stood there feeling a little helpless, not sure if I should intervene, wondering whether any […]
Curing the Post-Halloween Blues
Every November 1, without fail, I’m down in the dumps. The moment I wake, I am viscerally aware in the cilia and flagella of my cells that Halloween is gone, having slipped away with the other faithful departed we commemorate on All Saints’ Day. Anymore, even as I’m trick-or-treating with my family, the sadness is […]
