Grateful to share this piece by Mischa Willet: The exercise goes something like this: at the start of class, I ask students to take out a piece of paper, which more often than not these days means they cast about looking helpless till a more-responsible classmate offers aid. I give them some prompt, whose subject […]
Bauer Out(r)age
This post was written by Kyle Dupic. In the last issue of Sports Illustrated, MLB pitcher Trevor Bauer was featured due to his lightning rod of a personality. Bauer is a perfect example of the way social media has expanded and highlighted our love/hate relationship with nearly everything. He is on the cutting edge of […]
Another Week Ends: Hipster Conformity, Mononucleosis, Greek Basketball Coaching, Curated Imperfection, and The Secular Work Ethic
1. Tis the season for sickness. B.D. McClay over at The Hedgehog Review got mono, and while the short term result was a bout of feverish nightmares, excruciatingly painful swallowing, thundering headaches, and seemingly unending fatigue, the long term result was this marvelous essay: “The Ills That Flesh Is Heir to.” Her essay is a […]
What Happens When You Finally Quit Social Media
An anonymous confession. A recent study reported by The New York Times suggests that people are people with or without Facebook. People without Facebook have mood swings; people with Facebook have mood swings and access to thousands of pictures of people they might only kind of know. Examining the study, Benedict Carey explains how “heavy […]
A Football Filled with Goat’s Blood (and Other Things Men Can Do For Women)
Arunachalam Muruganantham is a personal hero of mine. Like most men, Muruganantham had no idea how menstruation even worked before he married his wife. As people with little means in India, he began to realize the incredible challenge that women like his wife faced when their periods came. There are profound health hazards that come along […]
Here’s To You, Fellow Introverts
Every now and then, I let myself think that I’ve left behind my introverted tendencies and moved into the (seemingly) glorious land of extroverted, outgoing people—they have it so much easier, right, being able to strike up a conversation with anyone about anything? But then I find myself in a situation where that introvert makes […]
Workaholics in the Hands of a Firing God
“When work becomes the primary arbiter of identity, purpose, worth, and community in our lives, it has ceased to function as employment and begun to function as a religion. Or at least we have made it responsible for providing the very things to which we used to look to God.” Those two lines are taken […]
Trial by Fyre
Grateful for this one by Sam Guthrie: In the game Jenga, players pull foundational wooden blocks from a block tower and place them strategically back on top. The tower gets higher and weaker, and all it takes is one misplaced block to bring it all tumbling down. If you’ve never played Jenga, but think you’d […]
You Can’t Come to My Wedding Unless You’re Just Like Me
I’ve been married for fifteen years and I don’t have any younger sisters, and so it’s been a while since I’ve been exposed to the bridal industrial complex except in a very peripheral way. But I do follow several advice columnists on social media for the high entertainment value of Other People’s Problems, and I […]
The Art of Subtlety in Faith (and Doubt): Our Interview with Meghan O’Gieblyn
Our first peek into the Faith & Doubt Issue is this interview with Meghan O’Gieblyn, author of the new book of essays, Interior States. We also were lucky enough to republish parts of her essay, originally published in The Point, “The Insane Idea.” Copies of Faith & Doubt can be gotten here, and here. If […]
What Is Love?
What is love? Love has no ego. Love and ego are antithetical. Diametrically opposed to one another. Foreign languages one to another. Ego equally has no love but is all pretense and self-preservation. This quote from Law and Gospel: A Theology for Sinners (and Saints) summarizes this well: We have a whole secondary self we put […]
