Beyoncé doesn’t take second swings at her targets, she seems to have no particular animus for anything she smashes. In fact, when she knocks the top off of a fire hydrant, children rush forward to play in the spray; a perfect realization of 'My wounds are fertile!' from Leslie Jamison’s 'Grand Unified Theory of Female… Read More
Tag: First Things
Modern Weddings Have Lost Interest In The Marriage Bed
"[The Knot Book of Wedding Lists] recommends planning (and planning to attend) a second party after the reception winds down, telling spouses-to-be: “An after-party is more than just an extension of your wedding day—it’s a great way to show off more of your wedding style with surprising details and personal touches.” [...] It can’t be… Read More
Making Sense of Surveys on Religion
"Almost every discussion of “Catholics” as a single, undifferentiated group, is about as useful as articles on “Millennials.” Catholics who attend Mass regularly tend to give very different answers than those who were baptized but don’t particularly practice, but they are often all rolled up into one category. In fairness to the pollsters, it’s expensive… Read More
How To Strengthen Catholic Community
"Churches can include more 'Winter Christian' themes in homilies and hymns. Winter Christians are both intensely engaged with their faith, but also intensely stymied by spiritual dryness, doubts, a persistent sin, or some other difficulty. (They’re unlike 'Summer Christians' who are joyfully drawn to the faith, and completely unlike people who like or dislike the church,… Read More
The Catholic Census
"Any other Saturday night, I might technically be able to pray with a stranger, but I wouldn’t have known how to ask. The papal visit drew people out, and made it easy to disclose our faith to each other. It felt like a much more joyful and communal version of the annual Catholic Census that… Read More
You Don’t Get Apologia Like You Used To
"The best dialogue in Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away is the titular first one, which, like Plato’s own writings is being related after the fact, for the benefit of a new audience. Cheryl, Plato’s media escort for his speaking engagement at Google, is explaining her challenging afternoon to a friend over drinks.… Read More
Time to Come Clean On Torture
"It’s no coincidence that Obama uses 'folks' to refer both to the people tortured and the people doing the torturing. Both uses are distancing and anonymous. There’s no mention of the individuals who were made to undergo simulated drowning (some over a hundred times) or the specific people who signed off on these procedures. People… Read More