Walls of our unbelief: Edith Stein It was 1918. The young intellectual was nervous about her upcoming visit to Anne, the widow of her good friend, Adolf Reinach, killed at the 1917 Battle of Flanders.How could she offer comfort?What could she say?Reinach was a fellow scholar at the University of Freiburg, an assistant to the […]
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The ambiguity of talent We use the word talent to connote skill or expertise. Often, we mean an individual with intrinsic aptitudes toward a thing. Whether it be athletics or mathematics, it’s someone with unusual ability. Organizational recruiters look for specific aptitudes in potential employees. We perceive these capacities as our own, as our property
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Before boarding the United States Army Transport ship Dorchester back in January, 1943, a Dutch Reformed Chaplain named Poling asked his father to pray for him, “Not for my safe return, that wouldn’t be fair. Just pray that I shall do my duty…never be a coward…and have the strength, courage and understanding of men. Just
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Ever since the industrial revolution, futurists have been forecasting the end of work. Recently, journalist Derek Thompson wrote in Atlantic Monthly about the immanence of widespread joblessness from the perspective of Youngstown, Ohio. For most of the last century, Youngstown boasted one of the more prosperous economies in the country, mostly due to the flourishing
Number 12 Brady A friend from church gave me Brady’s Pro Ball 2014 shirt several weeks ago. The shirt sits in proud display in our hallway. It is brought out when a friend with an interest in football visits. Or sometimes those with no interest. Joe, giver of the shirt, joined us for one of
“Go to church.” I surprised myself when I said it. My friend had been quietly explaining her deep concern about her experience with public school. After years of homeschooling her children, she and her husband enrolled them in school. She said the curriculum no longer uses ‘BC” and “AD” as historical measures. Instead, they use
Happiness: Feeling or decision? “So, how exactly, do you decide to be happy?” My friend looked bemusedly at me as she replied to my statement that I thought happiness was a decision we made. “LOOK at that tree!” I exclaimed loudly and with vehemence, knowing that my reply to her question required more than a
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Justice and politics Ideally the concept of justice is considered to be independent of contextual factors like politics. And the notion of correlating the two feels somewhat odious, or at least repugnant. But the recent Speilberg movie, Bridge of Spies, is a fascinating tale. of the oxymoronic twists of our government and its desire to appear
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The War Room- the movie Prayer as war: the correlation of combat with happiness has long been one which applies to my life. Therefore, a movie about prayer and war was one I knew I wanted to see when my sister Lee told me about it. Fitting, because the spiritual life is fundamentally a battle.
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Thinking about thinking As a recovering bibliophile, I made a promise to myself to read each of the books purchased in the last decade or two. And I am now making my way through After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre. Despite the density of the philosopher’s prose, reading this book is bringing me back to a place
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