Both of my sons are wordsmiths and the elder one has a particular facility for delivering groan-inducing puns with such lightning speed that even as you roll your eyes, you can’t help but be a little impressed—or terrified—by how dexterously his brain can associate many things with many other things… . Continue Reading »
It has become a strange and unfortunate commonplace that one must have faith in faith”faith, that is, in the ability to commit oneself to truths that transcend rational justification”not only out of respect for faith’s intrinsic (if futile) beauty, but also as a means to the truth. Confronted with inadequate evidence for the deeper truths of life, one must conjure up a commitment to ideas for which the subjective act of faith can be the only ground, and one must believe not only in the content of faith but in the faith-act itself… . Continue Reading »
In the August/September issue of First Things, I wrote briefly about New York’s Nanny-in-chief, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and his proposal to regulate the size of sugary drinks for sale in Gotham. Many commentators chortled. I’ve found myself thinking his efforts serious, and a sign of our times. Our neo-bourgeois elites feel the need to impose their order on the lower classes… . Continue Reading »
Growing up, my dad used to tell me something that made me laugh. He would look me straight in the eyes, all seriousness, and clear his throat. Remember, he would say to me, remember: Men. Are. Pigs. Having ultimately failed to keep me away from the opposite gender altogether, my dad has stopped drilling this mantra into my head… . Continue Reading »
Like a billion other viewers, I caught some of the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Games earlier this week. It was a marvel of planning and choreography. The visual highlight in a breathtaking spectacle was the moment when the two-hundred and four burning petals, lit from seven torches, rose to form a single, monumental cauldron at the center of the Olympic Stadium… . Continue Reading »
One of the more striking differences between the New Atheists and, say, Freud or Nietzsche is the willingness of the former to engage natural theology on its own terms. Not that they get very far in their clumsy forays”it’s all pretty halfhearted and amateurish stuff, indeed sometimes wincingly embarrassing… . Continue Reading »
In the summer of 1993, family obligations dictated that I move closer to home. It also meant taking a sabbatical from parish ministry. That’s how I ended up in Marceline, Missouri, population 2,500, interviewing with the publisher of the Marceline Press to become editor. He’d already offered the spot to me by telephone based on clips I sent. Now he was taking me on a tour, selling the town… . Continue Reading »
I am the daughter of a sperm donor. For a long time I didn’t understand how this had negatively impacted my life, until I read David Blankenhorn’s Fatherless America. It was like stepping into a series of scenes from my adolescence. Never before had someone so eloquently and acutely described my personal struggles. I now staunchly defy the pro donor-conception script I was expected to embrace… . Continue Reading »
Complaints that Washington-is-broken, which seem to have new intensity in recent years, often go hand-in-hand with laments about “partisanship” in politics. And, to be sure, there are reasons to be concerned about the functionality of our political system and its ability to address and solve some very serious problems… . Continue Reading »
The XIX International AIDS Conference took place in Washington, DC, July 22“27. The meeting occurs biennially, bringing together scientists, experts, and civil society actors in the largest conference on any health or development issue. The official theme of this year’s conference was “Turning the Tide Together.” However, it was the “Condomize!” campaign sponsored by UNFPA and the Condom Project in collaboration with Durex, UNAIDS, and several other organizations that set the predominant tone for the six-day event… . Continue Reading »
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