We have never preached violence, except the violence of love, which left Christ nailed to a cross, the violence that we must each do to ourselves to overcome our selfishness and such cruel inequalities among us. The violence we preach is not the violence of the sword, the violence of hatred. It is the violence…
Diary
White Girls on Trial: Casey Anthony and Amanda Knox
I admit I know virtually nothing about the trial of Casey Anthony, who is accused of killing her almost three-year-old toddler, Caylee. I find the media and the public’s obsessive preoccupation with this murder trial to be morbid, just as it was with the 1996 Jon Benet Ramsey murder case. But, most of all, I…
Aggression, Authority and Obedience: Stanley Milgram’s Theory of Obedience
“It is ironic that virtues of loyalty, discipline, and self-sacrifice that we value so highly in the individual are the very properties that create destructive organizational engines of war and bind men to malevolent systems of authority. The aftermath of the Holocaust and the events leading up to World War II, the world was stunned…
Richard Rohr on Human Perfection
If there is such a thing as human perfection, it seems to emerge precisely from how we handle the imperfection that is everywhere, especially our own. What a clever place for God to hide holiness, so that only the humble and earnest will find it! A “perfect” person ends up being one who can consciously…
Paul Sahre’s Tense Graphic Design
Q: How do you know when something you’ve designed is successful? A: It’s a little thing, a little Spark that makes something memorable or beautiful or unforgettable. It’s very hard to describe and people have very different ways of describing it. [Alexander] Gilman once came into my class at the school of visual arts,…
May God Bless You With Discomfort
May God bless you with discomfort At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships So that you may live deep within your heart May God bless you with anger At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, So that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. May God bless you with tears To shed for those…
I’m a big Franz Wright Fan
Wheeling Motel by Franz Wright The vast waters flow past its back yard. You can purchase a six-pack in bars! Tammy Wynette’s on the marquee a block down. It’s twenty-five years ago: you went to death, I to life, and which was luckier God only knows. There’s this line in an unpublished poem of…
Protecting Your Beliefs From Harm
Once something is added to your collection of beliefs, you protect it from harm. You do it instinctively and unconsciously when confronted with attitude-inconsistent information. Just as confirmation bias shields you when you actively seek information, the backfire effect defends you when the information seeks you, when it blindsides you. Coming or going, you stick…
Sacred Wounds
It has been acceptable for some time in America to remain “wound identified” (that is, using one’s victimhood as one’s identity, one’s ticket to sympathy, and one’s excuse for not serving), instead of using the wound to “redeem the world,” as we see in Jesus and many people who turn their wounds into sacred wounds…
The Prodigal Shepherd by Mike Fiala
This poem comes via Jesus Radicals. Mike Fiala dedicates this poem to the late Joe Lehner, who birthed the Cleveland Catholic Worker into existence in 1984-85.