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AI could solve loneliness the way fast food solves hunger: poorly
During the height of the COVID pandemic lockdown, the state of Florida provided robotic pets to assisted living facilities as a way to provide companionship to residents who were forced into isolation by policies enacted to stem the spread of the deadly disease. That lockdown highlighted something aging advocates have known for quite some time:…
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Let Us Dream
I’m putting my slow walk through the Gospel of John on pause for a few weeks; I’ve gotten up to the Passion narrative, and I’d rather read that closer to Holy Week. I’ve also found that I tend to find less in those stories that has gone unnoticed; because it is the center of the…
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I feel bad for Michael Jordan
I feel bad for Michael Jordan. Jordan, of course, is one of the greatest basketball players in the history of the sport and one of the clutch performers of all time in any sport. You probably have heard the story that he did not make the varsity team during his sophomore year of high school;…
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All Apologies
So when I said Ted Lasso was my new religion, I was joking. I mean, mostly. I’m approaching the impending third and likely final season of the Apple TV series with a mix of trepidation and excitement. Trepidation, because the series release date has been pushed back repeatedly, which seldom bodes well for the product.…
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Luke 15: Best of All Chapters
Here’s a little thing about the best chapter in the Bible: When I share these Bible things, they come from me reading through a book of the Bible and seeing what jumps out as something new or different or surprising. I’ve been through the four Gospels now, and for the most part, I come up…
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What position do you play? Four models of ministry from Acts
Faith, like life itself, is not a spectator sport. It is meant to be lived and played, not just watched from the sideline. But how do we find our role, our position, in a Church that only values one role? For the last few decades, Catholics appalled by the Church’s response to the sexual abuse…
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Blissfully Unaware
One of my favorite work quotes came from a leader who was adjudicating between warring factions in the office and said to the alleged victim, “You think those other guys wake up every morning thinking about how to make your lives miserable. The fact is, they don’t think about you at all!” I mention this…
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John 16: Relatable
How relatable is John’s Jesus? “Fully human and fully divine” is one of those Christian doctrines that is really hard to wrap your head around, and for me it usually devolves into a “What did Jesus know, and when did he know it?” musing that doesn’t have much of a resolution. On the one hand,…
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John 15: Down to the studs
I am a rotten gardener, but I am an even worse handyman. And yet, for the last few months, the same prayer continues to come to mind: Strip me down to the studs, Lord. I guess I’ve watched too many of those HGTV shows about home renovations. In John 15, Jesus talks about being the…
Reading Francis 