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. Thank you for reading this post. Today, we will take up the issue of languages and, more specifically, the death of languages. Next, we will take a look at the aftermath of the attack in Paris and some suggestions on how not to overreact to the terrorist threat. Then, we will see through Twitter and an experience of conversion. In the world of photography, I share with you...

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.  Mark Zuckerberg's12th selection in his "A Year of Books" is Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by historian Yuval Noah Harari of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. With just over 400 pages of text, Harari's well-written text is a delight to read. None extraneous, the 48 images selected for the work also drive the narrative forward. The Washington Post describes him as "an emerging rock-star lecturer at the nexus of history and science." Harari's work builds upon previous readings in Zuckerberg's list, especially Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature (cited explicitly by H...