1. Forgive me for going a little light on the commentary this week, first week of school and all that. Fortunately, though, there’s no dearth of material! First up, Amanda Hess penned yet another doozie for The NY Times, this time taking the new season of Netflix’s Queer Eye as an entry point to discuss […]
Another Week Ends: Lonely Girls, Religious Radicals, Anderson Cooper, Terrence Malick, Sleep Productivity, and the Sacrament of the Gospel
1. We’ve discussed the plight of teenage boys, but now there’s this research, from clinical psychologist Mary Pipher, about the increasing prevalence of loneliness in adolescent girls across America. Pipher talks about the 36% of school-age girls who report being anxious every day, who lack self-sufficiency and spend six to nine hours of each day […]
Another Week Ends: Divine Accidents, Sunday Scaries, Workism, Artificial Obligations, Drama-Free Romance, and StoryMakers
1. So you’re trying to sleep, and it’s well after bedtime, but you’re tossing and turning and unable to get comfy, and you notice you’re replaying the same scenario in your head: some vision of tomorrow, of what might happen, how a hope could be dashed. If you’ve had this experience, you’re far from alone […]
Another Week Ends: Highly Regimented Women, Every Day Carry, Olympic Suicide, Jungian Inflation, the Business of the Body, and the Same Clouds Keep Passing By
1. The joke that we used to make about cross-fit is starting to apply to mindfulness: “How do you know if someone practices mindfulness? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.” Which is not to suggest that loads of people aren’t finding mindfulness exercises to be helpful and good. Mindfulness was a topic of discussion at our […]
Another Week Ends: CBD Summers, Hanks as Rogers, Directors of Belonging, Fizzling Secular Churches, Payment Apps, and Trader Joe Props
1. Sitting on the beach last week, every hour some prop plane would drag a banner across the sky advertising the miracle of CBD–and where we could buy some. A month earlier, traveling to a wedding, my wife and I counted three brand new CBD boutiques on the main commercial drag of a prominent ‘new […]
Another Week Ends: The Space Race (and Grace), Professional Christian Burnout, Screen Addictions and Abstinence, Truth and Martyrdom, the Holies of Hollywood, and the Modern Leper
1. Appropriately timed for tomorrow’s 50th anniversary of the moon landing, our first link this week is “First Men and Original Sins,” from the latest issue of Image (ht EKR). British sci-fi novelist Adam Roberts asks to what extent a religious impulse was involved in the space race as well as in the subsequent rise […]
Another Week Ends: Decision Fatigue, Millennial Astrologists, an Inmate from Greenwich, the Phantom of Winnipeg, and the American Dream Value Menu
1. Headlining this week is a story from Vanity Fair about Chip Skowron, a hedge fund manager in Greenwich, CT who was indicted for insider trading and found himself facing prison time. What comes next is a story of grace if I’ve ever seen one, and one that continues to bear fruit (ht CB). Like […]
Another Week Ends: Contingent Self-Esteem, the Devil in the Mirror, the Perception Gap, Little League Brawling, Cain and Abel and Forgiveness
1. Some fascinating links for your perusal this week, first of which is this, from Vice: The Pursuit of High Self-Esteem Is Making Us Miserable, by Shayla Love. What is here defined as “self-esteem” would be more accurately rendered “contingent self-esteem.” Notably the most popular of its kind, contingent self-esteem resembles flattery or affirmation and […]
Another Week Ends: School Performance, Workplace Food, Cowboy Suicides, Love Ambitionists, and the Wrong Side of History
1. Today the fourteenth issue of the magazine goes to print, and so it’s only appropriate that we open this weekender with one of our issue’s featured interviewees (and conference speaker!), Alfie Kohn. In our Family Issue, Alfie and I talked about parenting and education, and how kids (and the people who raise them) are […]
Another Week Ends: Unfunded Mandates, Orthosomnia, One-Star Yelp Reviews, Lancaster Love, the Creation of Forky, and the Fastest Growing Religion in America
1. Fresh off the press from this morning, The Atlantic gives us new language to describe the law: “The Unfunded Mandate.” When the federal government requires states to abide by certain rules without providing the funding needed to support that rule, it’s called an Unfunded Mandate. Stay tuned, though — in the same way that […]
Another Week Ends: Pelagian Privilege, Quaker Parents, Reddit Karma, Church of Dataism, Summer Reading, and Search History Repeats
1. Well, file this first one under unexpected. Christianity Today published the transcript of the commencement address that Missouri senator Joshua Hawley gave at Kings College earlier this month, the title of which immediately piqued my interest, “The Age of Pelagius.” Pelagianism has long been a favorite punching bag here at Mbird, though admittedly not […]
Another Week Ends: Nuns and Nones, Work-Work Balance, Lapidation / Outrage, Cures for Depression, A Downward Ascent, and Supernatural Secularism
1. Whosoever is planning a summer vacation should note the following strategy from writer Olga Khazan: “I once made my boyfriend pay me for the hours I spent booking flights and hotels for our vacation.” That’s either evil or brilliant (or tragic); in any case, I’m very impressed! In context, Khazan is investigating “work-life balance” […]
