Category: Learning
Making Sense of “God’s Love”
Summer 2010. I am in Indonesia. None of my doctors are on the same page, but they all agree that something is wrong. One Saturday my shoulder freezes at the joint and I can’t lift it more than four ... Read More
How I Learned to Pray with the help of Saint Ignatius and a Times Bestseller
I always felt self-conscious and wishful when I prayed. I couldn’t stay focused. I hoped that a class on personal prayer would help me, so I took a course in the spring of my first year at Union, Th... Read More
The Curious Case of Ayaan Hirsi Ali
The former Muslim atheist who "prefer(s) John Locke, John Stuart Mill and Jon Stewart to Jesus Christ," commends...Jesus Christ?... Read More
Spills: A Collage for the News
When we receive news, we are being invited into a transaction of words, but we are not told what to do with them. We respond.... When words respond to words, we call it “education” and “dialogue... Read More
Where is God in Goodbye?
A while back I found out that my partner was a sex addict who had been leading a boozy secret life full of violence fetishes, endangerment of women, unprotected sex, compulsive pornographic email exch... Read More
Inter-Religious Diplomacy: Trustworthy Opponents Engaging in Respectful Contestation Yield Peaceful Tension
Historically, when people have found themselves in conflicts over the best way to live or the very purpose of life, they have often found a way to separate from—if not fight—each other to protect ... Read More
Give Meaning to What is Positive, Not to What is Negative
I can say with complete honesty that I am not mean. In fact, I haven’t a mean bone in my body. So, why then, do I sometimes do mean things? Why do I sometimes surround myself with negative thoughts ... Read More
Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Tibetan Buddhist Mandala
I spent a lot of time at the Gyuto Monks’ mandala at the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne, Australia. The mandala is the traditional Tibetan Buddhist form of sandpainting, pra... Read More