From the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s sermon on loving your enemies: There’s another reason why you should love your enemies, and that is because hate distorts the personality of the hater. We usually think of what hate does for the individual hated or the individuals hated or the groups hated. But it is even more tragic, it is even more ruinous and injurious to the individual who hates. You just begin hating somebody, and you will begin to do... Read more
I’ve wrapped up my second week at my new job, and I wanted to give you guys links and précis* of the pieces I’ve been writing over there. A Guide to Lies, Significant Lies, and Statistics Yup, only waited til post number two to start being aggressively nerdy at the new gig. Ultimately, the peer-reviewed journal system is, to paraphrase Churchill, the worst approach to understanding the world, except for all the others that have been tried. When we... Read more
— 1 — This week’s theme is made things and the delight that people take in making them. First up, a game that requires you to use forced perceptive to resize the objects around you to solve spatial puzzles. I’ll take a crack at explaining, but, believe me, it’s faster to just check the video below: Forced perspective is the name of the illusion that lets you look like you’re holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa or trapping your friend... Read more
I’ve been vulnerable to a bit of the New Year’s enthusiasm and tendency to overreach, and have been actively trying to pace myself. I’ve missed having a commute, since my metro ride pretty much guarantees I have the chance to say Morning and Night Office daily, and the cathedral right across from my office means I can go to Mass at lunch and say Midday Office right after. But I’ve been mostly holding my prayer life to those guys, even... Read more
In the most recent issue of First Things, one paragraph in Grant Kaplan’s essay “Celibacy as Political Resistance” really caught my attention. He’s writing about the USCCB’s opposition to the contraception mandate, but I think his point is well-taken regardless of your position on that policy question: In response to the government’s decision to force Catholic institutions to comply with the new health care law, for example, one might have hoped for a strong, prophetic, and theologically serious response from a Catholic... Read more
For all those readers who took a crack at my two Sherlock ciphers and want to see the answers. I wrote a riddle to reveal what I’d be cooking for the season finale viewing party, and encrypted it two different ways. The plaintext was: I’m covered up, but bubbling away inside. I’m seldom spicy, but a little hot to handle. And it’s hard not to be a little suspicious when there’s something a little foreign, or some would say rotten... Read more
The Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) put together a list of 30 Catholics Under 30 who, in their judgement, are helping make a difference in the Church and the world. I’m very honored to have been included in their list, which is subdivided into Activists, Artists and Athletes, Apostolates, and Intellectuals. (Guess which category I definitely didn’t fall into). I was particularly glad to see fellow Patheos blogger Marc Barnes and my friend Brandon Vogt on the list. I’d like... Read more
In 2014, I’m reading and blogging through Pope Francis/Cardinal Bergoglio’s Open Mind, Faithful Heart: Reflections on Following Jesus. Every Monday, I’ll be writing about the next meditation in the book, so you’re welcome to peruse them all and/or read along. In Pope Francis’s second meditation, he talks about the role of a priest and one of the pitfalls of that vocation: An abyss separates the priest from the religious functionary; they are qualitatively different. Sadly, however, the priest can be slowly transformed, little... Read more
This New Year’s, I didn’t end up making any big resolutions, but I did wind up writing for First Things on a cognitive reframe that helps me spot actions or behaviors I should cut out of my moral diet. When I review my day in an Examen or if an action catches my attention in the moment, I sometimes like to get a better perspective on my choices by using a reframe. Instead of just asking what I should do right now,... Read more
This weekend, I’m hosting friends for the season finale of Sherlock. Inspired by Lemony Snicket, I sent out the invitation with a simple hidden message for close readers and promised them that I’d cook them something blackmail related at the party. Now, I’ve chosen what to make for them to eat, and I need somewhere to put the new ciphertext revealing the answer. I figured I’d put it here and you all can play along, if you’d like. Both blocks of... Read more
Unequally Yoked
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