Whoa

What, then, is stopping creationism from being the dominant theory of where humans come from?

It’s the fact that creationists have worse arguments . It’s tough to get someone to believe that the Earth is 7,000 years old. You have to convince them that you have a book of God’s actual words, that the other supposed books of God’s words are imposters, ... See more

As I’ve gotten older, though, I’ve gradually come to the realization that...pain and hurt is a necessary part of life. If you think about it, it’s precisely because people are different from others that they’re able to create their own independent selves. Take me as an example. It’s precisely my ability to detect some aspects of a scene that other ... See more

The way you change a person is by getting through not to their head or their will but to their heart.

Even after a beautiful Mass, ritual, or retreat, we go right back to either/or, dualistic thinking. We go right back to being angry Republicans or Democrats, Protestants or Catholics, Black people or white people. It just never stops. But as we practice, contemplation becomes a way to touch upon reality, a way of penetrating illusion.

I can’t tell whether this is so obvious it doesn’t merit mentioning, or so fundamental it’s hard to see, but I’ve noticed recently that there seem to be two core approaches people take to establishing trust in communication. Call them “truth-seeking” and “community-seeking.” Most people seem to have a dominant social mode in which they operate basi... See more

It will probably be harder to start working than to keep working. You'll often have to trick yourself to get over that initial threshold. Don't worry about this; it's the nature of work, not a flaw in your character. Work has a sort of activation energy, both per day and per project. And since this threshold is fake in the sense that it's higher th... See more

History is the vast store of human consciousness adrift in the gulf of time, the present living in the past and the past living in the present. So when I read Shakespeare, Jefferson, Twain, or Machiavelli, I’m with them in time present. It’s why we still read Edith Wharton, Virginia Woolf, James Baldwin, and Flaubert—what survives the wreck of time... See more

Coming out in the religious south was one thing, and I’ve met a few folks with aligning stories to my own. But there has also been the coming out process within the gay community. I still live near where I grew up, and on any given occasion, the majority of my friends are straight. The geographic isolation of living in a rural community for me has ... See more

We do not attain anything by our own holiness but by ten thousand surrenders to mercy. A lifetime of received forgiveness allows us to become mercy. Mercy becomes our energy, our meaning. Perhaps we are finally enlightened and free when we can both receive mercy and give it away—without payment or punishment.