Barbara Ehrenreich (an atheist and a journalist) recently published a book called Living with a Wild God, in which she probes and explores an experience she had that she couldn’t quite explain: In May of 1959, Barbara Ehrenreich was taken into the mountains in Northern California by a boy looking for dynamite. They spent the night in the car, and in the morning, she wandered into town on foot. It happened then and there — an onrush of mystical visions —... Read more
Social Media Curation through Milq Overwhelmed by the disarray of social media? Looking for some way to make sense of the mess? Help may be on the way. Ben Sisario of the New York Times reports on the beta release of Milq: How can users separate the essential content from the utterly disposable? How can they intelligently organize and share the most interesting of the media ephemera flying past them constantly on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr? The people behind Milq,... Read more
Chances are you’ve heard about the “10,000 hour rule,” popularized by Malcolm Gladwell, which posits that it takes about 10,000 hours of practice to master something – for instance, playing an instrument or playing a sport. But now, one psychologist is claiming this isn’t true after all – it’s more complicated: The “10,000-hour rule” — that this level of practice holds the secret to great success in any field — has become sacrosanct gospel, echoed on websites and recited as... Read more
Today, Pope Francis did something exceptional, declaring two former popes to be saints. Now, Pope John XXIII is Saint John XXIII and Pope John Paul II is Saint John Paul II. This is making headlines, both because the canonization of any human being is notable and because pundits are trying to outdo each other in guessing at the political motivation for Pope Francis’ unusual recognition of the sainthood of two former popes at the same time, popes who are thought... Read more
As Microsoft completed its purchase of Nokia Devices and Services, Stephen Elop, former Nokia CEO and now executive vice president of the Devices Group at Microsoft, weighed in on the end of the PC: “The vast majority of people do not have, nor will they ever have a personal computer,” Elop said. “They haven’t been exposed to Windows or Office, or anything like that, and in their lives it’s unlikely that they will. And yet through the mobile phone business... Read more
A statue of a “homeless Jesus” recently caused a bit of ruckus near the town of Davidson, North Carolina. The story was picked up by NPR: The statue depicts Jesus as a vagrant sleeping on a park bench. St. Alban’s Episcopal Church installed the homeless Jesus statue on its property in the middle of an upscale neighborhood filled with well-kept townhomes. Jesus is huddled under a blanket with his face and hands obscured; only the crucifixion wounds on his uncovered... Read more
I always perk up when I see the word “vocation” in an unexpected place, and it popped up in the New York Times recently, in a piece about what an art curator does. So if you’ve ever been interested in that question, read on: How did you decide to become a curator? I loved art, but early on I realized that I wasn’t very good at making it. But when I took an art history course during my sophomore year at... Read more
Over at The High Calling, Christine Scheller recently interviewed Ari Handel, the co-writer of Noah, about the film: One way to think about this is, in Genesis, mankind is given dominion and then mankind is asked to have stewardship. I think that is pretty much reflective of where we are today. It’s undeniable that we have dominion over this world. It is under our rule in the sense that we are affecting it more than anything has ever affected it. A... Read more
Do we need to teach college students how to unplug? Is this a good use of their educational time, not to mention tuition money? David Levy, a professor in the Information School at the University of Washington says “Yes,” according to a recent article in USA Today. In “Prof tackles tech distractions one student at a time,” we learn about Levy’s course entitled “Information and Contemplation”: A college course that starts with 15 minutes of doing absolutely nothing would seem... Read more
To match the Good Friday poem, one of my favorites. Descending Theology: The Resurrection By Mary Karr From the far star points of his pinned extremities, cold inched in—black ice and squid ink— till the hung flesh was empty. Lonely in that void even for pain, he missed his splintered feet, the human stare buried in his face. He ached for two hands made of meat he could reach to the end of. In the corpse’s core, the stone fist... Read more
Mark D. Roberts
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In