Articles

Fighting Loneliness in the Northern Virginia Swamps

The happiest boomers I know love nothing more than talking with their old friends about their new grandchildren. So, my holiday recipe for fighting loneliness is lots of face-to-face talking–with strangers, family, and everyone between.

After Virtual: Chris Arnade

Chris Arnade, the keynote speaker at the After Virtual conference, has traded global finance for skid row photography.  Chris discusses his journey from Wall...

All the Ways You Can Stay

So leave if you must, but perhaps not today. Stop and consider all the ways you can stay.

Monson, Maine’s Fascinating Story: A Review of Here & Everywhere Else

Manchester, NH. The prospect of moving from our little cottage in New Hampshire causes me great pain. Why? Because I am a creature of...

Meaningless Manchester: Do Provincial Cities Exist?

It is meant to reference, to supplement, but also to circumvent. Manchester doesn’t do smog or spinning jennies anymore. It’s a friendly city. Come on in.

A is for Alligator

But the promise of the coming of the Messiah is that all these animals will be changed from enemies of the human race into its friends, or at least comfortable and tolerant neighbors. This promise sheds, furthermore, a different light on the present discomfort that some of us may feel over the invading much-maligned bugs and wildlife.

A Christian Critique and the Neoliberal Future: A Review of Naming...

Clapp’s ambitious study attempts a great deal within a comparatively brief compass. Unfortunately, some topics suffer as a result...How can one best understand the tension between individual moral responsibility (rooted in Protestantism) and an individual liberty which rejects external constraints?

Why I Wish I Didn’t Have a Smartphone and Computer (But...

We can agree that many technological “advances” have objectively done more harm than good, in terms of the human condition as well as the Earth, and that we face a bleak scenario of looming catastrophe. But this doesn’t mean that there is no way out.

No Justice, No Peace? René Girard and Endless Rivalries

The rivalry we’re experiencing goes deeper than symptoms, political principles, and even the need for responsive, wise leaders. Indeed, it may bypass principles and wisdom altogether. But to explain it, I need the help of anthropologist and literary critic René Girard.

The Census Taker in a Church Pew

It is a trouble that visits us all: our fate is to die and be forgotten. Tying ourselves to one another and to life can diminish that trouble’s force, but kingdoms and cultures and homes rise and fall. Being willingly bound in devotion to the Creator redeems that trouble forever.