IN A COUNTRY THAT CLAIMS TO FEAR GOD, what sort of society have we created that allows someone to freeze to death outside, because there is no room for them at the inn In the 1990s, an SNL skit loosely titled “The Roxbury Guys” featured Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan,…
Your God Is Too Small
How conspiracy theories became bigger than God and ultimately hijacked the Republican Party Let’s be honest about this: that’s why your church and your way of life are dying. You talk as if you had a big God, but you don’t act like it. If you had an all-powerful God…
Fingerpainting
We lose our nerve as we age, there is no getting around it. Not you, you say. Maybe so. Momentum is a wonderful thing and if you’re already moving, it’s not so hard to keep it going. If you’re a hardcore traveler and you just keep traveling, it’s probably easier…
Reading Is Fundamental
We have a problem in America. It’s probably not what you think it is, but it is likely derivative of what I think it is, which is that people don’t read. Not that people can’t read, which is a different issue, but that people don’t read. They are not engaged…
Frittering Away What’s Left Of Eternity
The feeling comes over me every so often, like a wave. It can happen several times in a week, or once every several weeks. I can even go weeks and months without thinking about it at all. But eventually, it will find me, at the strangest, most inopportune time, unexpectedly…
The Not So Great Outdoors
When I think of my favorite writers, I don’t spend a lot of time imagining them outside. Some of my favorite writers, and comedians, seem to be more of what Jim Gaffigan calls “indoorsy.” I think of David Sedaris, Calvin Trillin, Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Bryson, Malcolm Gladwell, and Anne Lamott…
The Magic Of Failure
The dictionary defines magic as “an extraordinary power or influence seemingly from a supernatural source.” I think of writing as a kind of magic. A collection of charms, spells, incantations and rites that I’ve been developing since I discovered the power of language and realized it could used as a…
Love Is The Answer
In the movie A Beautiful Mind, John Nash gives his Noble Prize speech and explains that despite all his mathematical searching, and throughout his struggle mental illness, it was love that made life worth living. Love was the answer to the question. “I’ve always believed in numbers,” he says,…
Going Flat Out
People are said to have talents, by which we mean something you are gifted with at birth and which you did not earn. Whereas a skill is something you hone over time, through hard work and determination. Aptitude might be considered the possibility that your talent, if honed, could become…
Teach Your Children Well
The problem I have with the elf on your shelf is that it is a blatant attempt to teach children to be good, when I think the central message of Christianity, and therefore presumably the message of Christmas, is to be kind. Be kind. That’s the message of love that…