Bet on It

Bet on It

“You’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do you, punk?”(Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry) San Francisco’s famously unhinged police inspector isn’t typically a source of theological insight.  But his quotable quote spotlights our culture’s...
Be Polite

Be Polite

Don’t be an idiot.  Be polite. If those two sentences don’t appear to be natural go-togethers, it’s because we’ve lost track of the origin of a pair of words that were once intimately related. Let’s start with the Greek word idiotes (id-ee-OH-tays).  In ancient times...
Prepositional Truth

Prepositional Truth

In the vast majority of human languages, nouns and verbs have all the fun. Those forms of speech are usually at the center of the action when it comes to communication.Prepositions, however, aren’t far behind.  That’s because they express relationships...
Who Belongs in the Picture?

Who Belongs in the Picture?

Venice Academy of Arts Everyone agreed that it was a wonderful painting – Paolo Veronese’s ginormous depiction of Jesus and his disciples at the Last Supper.  But was it really a religious painting?    Church authorities in Venice in 1573 were...
Facing Death

Facing Death

“If you could live forever, would you want to, and why?”That’s the question that the host of the 1994 Miss USA competition posed to Miss Alabama, Heather Whitestone.  She memorably replied, “I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if...
The Power of One

The Power of One

In 2004, a 15-year-old student turned an extra credit project into a national movement. California high schooler Shauna Fleming was unsettled when she heard a news report that American military personnel serving overseas were feeling unappreciated on the home front. ...