It’s a paradox, but the more things break down, the more people cling to old forms, and the greater the pressure to conform to them. As the black sheep of my family, I know how destructive the demand of conformity can be. I didn’t need a tattoo to be a non-conformist, since my non-conformity wasn’t [...]
At the core of the Christian faith is the idea of “God becoming man in Jesus.” When I became old enough to question my conditioning in my mid-teens, I instinctively felt this was wrong. I saw that making Jesus into God meant that God was in the image of man, and that made no sense [...]
“It was in Africa that the first tool was invented, the first fire lit by a human hand, the first crop planted, the first village established, the first language spoken,” says E. Thomas Lawson in “Religions of Africa.” And Africa is still vibrant, unlike North America and Europe. Even if someone defines himself or herself [...]
I sit at a walk-in picnic site overlooking the swollen stream. A steady flow of people goes by on the pedestrian park road—runners, bikers, walkers, and the occasional rollerblader. Intensely observing the movement of thought/emotion with no more interference than the water rushing by, a deeply meditative state ensues. It’s not any form of hypnosis, [...]
Feminist theorist and author Elisabeth Badinter argues women are being shackled by expectations of what it takes to be a good mother. Women once again need to start talking frankly to each other about what it means to be a woman. Contrary to a coalescing body of opinion, it does not mean being a mother. [...]
Paleo-anthropologists are generally of the view, in the words of Ian Tattersall, that ³there has never been a more fateful arrival on the biological scene than that of our extraordinary species.² Old anthropocentrism dies hard. Though the first fully modern humans probably emerged in eastern or southern Africa over a hundred thousand years ago, the first [...]
“Men go first, and if it works, women follow.” A Russian woman told me that proverb in Moscow many years ago. It’s interesting to see how women and men react to it these days. Most men scoff; most women get angry. It was my last night of an immersive business trip to Russia, about a [...]
If you want to understand how parlous the political culture has become in America, just look at the stories that dogged us last week regarding the two candidates for the most powerful office in the world. First there’s the ongoing saga of the Mitt Romney cross-country vacation decades ago. The story goes that with the [...]
In most interviews for public reading or viewing, indeed in nearly all of them, a strict and unspoken format is followed. The interviewer asks questions and the interviewee gives answers. There is a radically different approach—questioning together. Humankind faces an unprecedented crisis in every facet and at every level, and it is not being adequately [...]
In an ironic twist of reasoning, a reader writes, “the absence of a healthy sense of self or ego can lead to psychological illness, and difficulties in life in all kinds of ways.” Talk about trying to make the cause of the disease the cure! Voicing a common view, she says on one hand, “the [...]
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