The Narthex

During a recent academic conference, one of the speakers dazzled the audience—or me, at least—by suddenly switching from perfect English to what sounded like perfect Sanskrit. Without missing a beat, he then interpreted the short Sanskrit phrase he had uttered: “The gods reside where the women are respected.”

It appears…

The pet industry is reaping billions from modern man's spiritual desolation -- that sense of emptiness and disquiet that aches for remedy. As workaholism and an ever-higher cost of living moves people to delay or forego marriage and children, pets fill the void in their lives. It’s a sign of…

Mt. Everest is the highest mountain in the Himalayan system, located near the common border of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China. Everest, at 29,032 feet, has drawn climbers from every nation. Even the blind have risked their lives to climb it. Sir Edmund Hillary famously did so on May 23, 1953.…

Inadequate nutrition afflicted many children in the WWII years, due to food rationing. At an early age I developed myopia, and I suspect poor nutrition partly caused it. Evidence is mounting that this vision problem is growing around the world, with recent estimates at 30% and forecasts that by 2050…

What is the point of all this technology? What purpose does a Bluetooth refrigerator serve? How many apps can one person possibly need? Can you really taste the difference when burgers are grilled on a WIFI-enabled grill? On a recent trip with my mother to a new office building, I…

Shimoda Utako is probably not a household name in America. She isn’t very well known in Japan, either, although Japan is the land of her birth. This has not always been the case, though. Shimoda Utako was famous more than a hundred years ago as a model woman of Meiji…

Passion is trending! There’s nary a resumé in which the applicant doesn’t tell us “my passion is…” nor an author’s bio-sketch that doesn’t confide that “______ is my passion.” A precedent: David Hume admitted that literary fame, not philosophy, was his ruling passion. Whatever the passion be, a promise comes…

I’ve often heard it said that “Life isn’t just.” Well, maybe. And maybe that’s why so many of us are keen on “free stuff.” But is there any? A Libertarian with whom I debate thinks that there’s lots of it. For a start, paying taxes should be optional. And if…

The phrase civil disobedience stirs up a whole range of reactions. We might think of Gandhi’s brave followers beaten to the ground in their serried ranks as they tried to break the salt monopoly, or Martin Luther King’s peace marchers, or of WWII resistance fighters in Greece, France, and Italy,…

In Matthew 19:12 Christ suggests His male disciples may want to make themselves (figurative) eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. In Orthodox Jewish culture, men are expected to obey God’s directive to reproduce and sire offspring; Jewish women still judge barrenness a stigma. Why would Christ incur…

California bureaucrats are aiming for more and more control over our lives—with no end in sight. A San Diego county government agency is proposing various options for a mileage tax, anticipating that more electric vehicles will reduce overall gas tax revenues -- currently 51 cents per gallon— by far the…

On a warm, sunny spring morning, I passed a rose bush blooming in its full glory. Remembering to take time to stop for the roses, I leaned over to smell its sweet, delicious bouquet. I often do this on my walks and have found that only one in ten rose…

Several of my neighbors are overweight. One young woman can hardly squeeze into her shiny sports-car, which she pays others to keep spotlessly clean and mirror-waxed. Another family's grown kids are each well over 250 pounds. Though the parents seem in decent shape, their eldest son, in his forties and…

Nowadays many people hope for a multinational and god-free world. That is their “promised land.” For such people Christianity has brought more misery than relief, more gloom than joy, more war than peace, more hatred than love. And – let us be honest – they can produce evidence to support…

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy is a day most everyone over 70 can recall. It was as if that latent American dream for a Camelot regime died with him. His witty political adroitness, savvy speeches, and New England accent hinted of royalty. Those talents lent an aura to…