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Why not? Do you ever introduce yourself as a Victorian? If not, why not? Simple. People imagine Victorians as provincial, priggish, prudish and past tense. We’re in a post-Victorian age. If you want to launch a conversation, calling yourself a Victorian is a non-starter. So here’s a question: Do you ever introduce yourself as a…
Joy wills eternity. My father passed away this past Tuesday. I got the news via voice mail after landing at the airport on a business trip. My brother’s message made me feel cramped and claustrophobic in the airplane fuselage. I wanted to crawl out the window.
Get your motor running. Ever wrestled with a decision or had trouble just plain remembering where you put your car keys? What do you do? Some people stop and pray. That’s good. Yet a growing body of new research suggests that pacing the floor, gesturing with our hands, and taking your car for a spin…
ZZZZZZap! No matter who wins the presidential race in November, Social Security won’t be touched. It’s the “third rail” in politics. You touch it you die. In business, you can experience a similar shock if you touch religion, says Nicholas Wolterstorff. “If the businessman, rather than being motivated by the bottom line of profit, allows…
O Little Town of Nicaea. Walls were splattered with graffiti, pamphlets inflamed passions, and lawsuits were being filed right and left. The early church was threatened with a schism over one apparently simple question: in what way is Jesus divine?1 Hoping to calm the gathering storm, the Emperor Constantine convened a council in 325 at…
So hallowed and so gracious. The midnight channel crossing was eerily silent inside the Higgins boats. Each 36×10 ft. Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel (LCVP) was pulsating to a 225 horsepower diesel engine pushing thirty-six GIs through the stormy seas. Knowing yet not knowing what awaited them at dawn, the men fell into an almost hallowed…
Turn out the lights. Richard Stevens used to wonder why there is a higher incidence of breast cancer among women in the industrialized world than in developing countries. Then, “I literally woke up in the middle of the night – there was a street lamp outside the window, and it was so bright that I…
Four corners. Today, only 54 percent of Americans read a newspaper during the week.1 For those aged 18 to 24, the number declines to 40 percent.2 Newspaper reading is falling off. Yet this might actually be a positive sign. The modern news business is based on a false premise that dumbs us down. So dumb…
No room at the inn. “Committed, engaged, ambitious, informed art does not mix with dedicated, serious, thoughtful, heartfelt religion,” says The Art Institute of Chicago’s James Elkins.1 In his new book On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art, he writes: “To fit in the art world, work with a religious theme has to…
The End of the Beginning?
Michael Metzger
February 11, 2008
Higher illiteracy? How many friends came over yesterday to watch the Pro Bowl? You’re kidding. Almost 100 million Americans watched the Super Bowl the Sunday before. Why does the NFL Pro Bowl – featuring a far larger galaxy of stars – draw such a puny audience? If you know the answer, you also understand why…