If you are sick, you will not be left alone.” This strikes me as not only kind, not only comforting, but the very epitome of civilization, good government, i.e., the the crux of the societal...

In The Bloudy Tenent, Williams points out that Constantine “did more to hurt Christ Jesus than the raging fury of the most bloody Neroes.” at least under the Christian persecutor Nero, who was rumored to...

It’s such a hopeful, almost utopian word, that word “phase.” As if any minute, “we” would suffer some sort of Joad overload, come to “our” senses, and for heaven’s sake, do something about our godforsaken...

Just the other day, I was in my neighborhood Starbucks, waiting for the post office to open. I was enjoying a chocolatey cafe mocha when it occurred to me that to drink a mocha is...

Being a nerd, which is to say going too far and caring too much about a subject, is the best way to make friends I know.

The groundswell of outrage over the invasion of Iraq often cited the preemptive war as a betrayal of American ideals. The subtext of the dissent was: ‘This is not who we are.’ But not if...

…the air has that bracing autumnal bite so that all you want to do is bob for apples or hang a witch or something.

Robert Todd Lincoln, a.k.a. Jinxy McDeath.

I wish it were different. I wish that we privileged knowledge in politicians, that the ones who know things didn’t have to hide it behind brown pants, and that the know-not-enoughs were laughed all the...

We are flawed creatures, all of us. Some of us think that means we should fix our flaws. But get rid of my flaws and there would be no one left.

For Americans, Acts 16:9 is the high-fructose corn syrup of Bible verses–an all-purpose ingredient we’ll stir into everything from the ink on the Marshall Plan to canisters of Agent Orange. Our greatest goodness and our...

Honestly, the only question most Americans ask about a new building at this point is basically: Is it a soul-sucking eyesore of cheap-ass despair? It’s not? Whew.

After Hiram Bingham built the first church on Oahu the student recalls, “When it was completed some of the natives said among themselves, ‘That house of worship built by the haoles is a place in...

Acts 16:9 is the meddler’s motto, simultaneously selfless and self-serving, generous but stuck-up. Into every generation of Americans is born a new crop of buttinskys sniffing out the latest Macedonia that may or may not...

I am pro-plaque.

If I’m still wistful about On the Road, I look on the rest of the Kerouac oeuvre–the poems, the poems!–in horror. Read Satori in Paris lately? But if I had never read Jack Kerouac’s horrendous...

History is one war after another with a bunch of murders and natural disasters in between.

We never expected or desired to produce a Byron, a Napoleon, or a Michelangelo.” You know you’ve reached a new plateau of group mediocrity when even a Canadian is alarmed by your lack of individuality.

I guess if I had to pick a spiritual figurehead to possess the deed to the entirety of Earth, I’d go with Buddha, but only because he wouldn’t want it.

By journey’s end the brides were much better acquainted with their grooms and more or less pleased with the matches. Sybil Bingham wrote in her diary, thanking God for answering her prayer for filling “the...

…there’s nothing more depressing than bad capitalism.

The only thing more dangerous than an idea is a belief. And by dangerous I don’t mean thought-provoking. I mean: might get people killed.

I waited in vain for someone like me to stand up and say that the only thing those of us who don’t believe in god have to believe is in other people and that New...

We were breathing sooty air. The soot was composed of incinerated glass and steel but also, we knew, incinerated human flesh. When the local TV news announced that rescue workers sorting through the rubble in...

But I can no longer ready any faith’s Napoleonic saber rattling without picturing smoking rubble on cable news. I guess if I had to pick a spiritual figurehead to possess the deed to the entirety...

All those adorable towheaded kids in the promotional film are going to turn thirteen. Once a family member hits puberty, odds are that everybody is not going to have the same ideals. Unless everybody gets...

How about that for a utopian answer?” To my not particularly utopian nose, crushed selfishness smells a lot like cilantro.

That’s what I like to call him, “the current president.” I find it difficult to say or type his name, George W. Bush. I like to call him “the current president” because it’s a hopeful...

Heaven, such as it is, is right here on earth. Behold: my revelation: I stand at the door in the morning, and lo, there is a newspaper, in sight like unto an emerald. And holy,...