Easter in Ordinary

Weekly, I post four articles that I found significant and a poem accompanied by some comments about what we can learn from them. Our lives are enriched by seeing better. Each week, one article comes from the world of photography, a discipline that is about seeing. Another article comes from the world of technology, hence seeing something of the future. Another article takes up an aspect of our life together, seeing more clearly the other. Another article refers to faith, seeing the unseen. Finally, the weekly post concludes with a poem, because poetry is about seeing words whose arrangement allows us to see anew. This week has been all Pope Francis, all the time. With windows for reading and a very few other activities, I have been watching and listening to the Pope's visit. It would be very easy to present the full course of this week through the lens of the Holy Father's visit. Pope Francis Is Not ‘Progressive’—He’s a Priest . While much is made of trying to in...

I just came across an article from The Washington Post , Why Pope Francis’s silence on black America may soon end , and, while it breaks new ground, I would suggest re-focusing some of its conclusions. Take a minute, go read the article, and come back, please. I have been struck in recent months by the challenges before us, as a nation and as a Catholic Church in the U.S., around the issues of race. I was out of the country until the end of March. I watched from abroad as events unfolded in Ferguson, MO. Living in Chile these last years, I perceived anew some of the warped ways that we attend to race in the U.S., ways that are peculiar to our history. Also, in recent months, I have been reading Bryan Stevenson , Michelle Alexander , john a. powell , and Ta-Naheisi Coates . Increasingly, issues around race, structural racism, and implicit bias have been a growing concern for me. The Pew Research Center recently ranked Catholics as among the most racially diverse faiths in the ...

Weekly, I post four articles that I found significant and a poem. Our lives are enriched by seeing better. Each week, one article comes from the world of photography, a discipline that is about seeing. Another article comes from the world of technology, hence seeing something of the future. Another article takes up an aspect of our life together, seeing more clearly the other. Another article refers to faith, seeing the unseen. Finally, the weekly post concludes with a poem, because poetry is about seeing words whose arrangement allows us to see anew. In a week filled with much news-making controversy, let's try to see some fundamentals. First, let's look at a graph about patents. Second, let's examine the government's investment in higher education and what it means for us. Then, let us see some images from a photographer who has documented migration for years. Fourth, let's take a deeper look at Pope Francis' visit to the U.S. Finally, our poetry re-visits...

Throughout this year, I have been following Mark Zuckerberg's reading list , but my reading also has been influenced by Bill Gates (or his 2014 list ) and, more recently, President Obama. In addition to Ta-Nahesi Coates' Between the World and Me , I also decided to read Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History from President Obama's summer reading list . One reads a book with the term "extinction" in its title at one's own peril. Kolbert's work multiples that peril. Arranged in thirteen chapters, each with its own species that has gone extinct, Kolbert weaves a tale of life's precarity in earth's history. Photo credit: Barry Goldstein Educated in in literature as an undergraduate at Yale and a Fulbright fellowship that took her to Germany, Kolbert has been a professional journalist and author. Not unlike Matt Ridley's Genome , Kolbert deftly mixes science and history with linguistic grace. Along with contemp...

Mature, public conversation about issues that matter is foundational for democratic society. I am delighted that Mark Zuckerberg's " A Year of Books " offers such an opportunity. To contribute to that dialog, I will offer commentary on each of the readings proposed by Zuckerberg. I take it simply as truth that most people, rich and poor, spend most of their time earning money, spending money, and worried about money. Portfolios of the Poor: How the World's Poor Live on $2 a Day , authored by Daryl Collins, Jonathan Morduch, Stuart Rutherford, and Orlanda Ruthven, delves into the economic lives of the poor with the science of economists. Portfolios of the Poor assesses more than 250 financial diaries of people who live on $2 a day from South Africa, India, and Bangladesh. Their methodology is sophisticated. Their investment of time with these families is significant. Their treatment of these poor, more importantly, is profoundly respectful. They capture the thri...

Weekly, I post four articles that I found significant and a poem. Our lives are enriched by seeing better. Each week, one article comes from the world of photography, a discipline that is about seeing. Another article comes from the world of technology, hence seeing something of the future. Another article takes up an aspect of our life together, seeing more clearly the other. Another article refers to faith, seeing the unseen. Finally, the weekly post concludes with a poem, because poetry is about seeing words whose arrangement allows us to see anew. This week, I will forgo the article on photography as I would like to draw our eyes to something else. We have significant choices before us: a deal with Iran, a presidential election, what we will eat today, all with consequences, even if we are oblivious to them. I admit that I am constructing a "straw man" here amid newsmakers of our day, concluding with a familiar poem, while suggesting an unfamiliar interpretatio...

Weekly, I post four articles that I found significant and a poem. Our lives are enriched by seeing better. Each week, one article comes from the world of photography, a discipline that is about seeing. Another article comes from the world of technology, hence seeing something of the future. Another article takes up an aspect of our life together, seeing more clearly the other. Another article refers to faith, seeing the unseen. Finally, the weekly post concludes with a poem, because poetry is about seeing words whose arrangement allows us to see anew. Here in the U.S., it is Labor Day Weekend. We have some additional time to renew ourselves, to spend some time with family and friends, but also to read. Teaching With Documents:Photographs of Lewis Hine: Documentation of Child Labor . I sometimes ask myself: "What story do my collection of images tell?" In honor of Labor Day, I would like to direct your attention to Lewis Hine , a New York City teacher and photographer, ...

In 1976, the year of the Bicentennial, I was but six years old. I remember vaguely the patriotic observance, the parades, the Red, White, and Blue. Through my youth, my parents led us through the National Parks, learning of our nation's history. My education dutifully included study of our history and government, especially in high school, as well as selected readings, like The Federalist Papers in the university. Nonetheless, I have neglected serious study of the history of the American Revolution, preferring the popular films and occasional documentary. Thus, it was overdue that I dedicate some hours to David McCullough 's simply titled 1776 . Like much of history, where the final outcome remains fixed with certainty, an historian may take a slice of the history, otherwise well-known, and tease out tension, not regarded in the dominant narrative. McCullough does this exceptionally in recounting the doubts and darkness that consumed the American campaign from the end of A...