Egregious Reader

The latest This American Life is called Three Miles and covers the class divide through two high schools in the Bronx. One is a poor public school and the other is $43k per year. It was really well done, Chana Joffe-Walt does a great job and I am glad she took up this story and worked so hard on it (tracking down Melanie). http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/550/three-miles The other thing that I am really enjoying is the first listen preview to an artist totally new to me: Laura Marling: http://www.npr.org/2015/03/15/391924095/first-listen-laura-marling-short-movie

Last part! I didn’t think my meditations on evil would be complete without some discussion of death. To do this I re-read a very short meditation by Nicholas Wolterstorff called  Lament For A Son . His son, Eric, died in a climbing accident at 25 and these were his meditations and reflections during that time which 10 years later he decided to publish in hopes of helping others to share their feelings in times of loss and lament.  I couldn't help thinking of others I have known who have lost like this. My friend Brit drowned in the red sea while free diving. He was the oldest of five.  ​Silence. 'Was there a letter from Eric today?" "When did Eric say he would call?" Now only silence. Absence and silence. When we gather now there's always someone missing, his absence as present as our presence, his silence as loud as our speech. Still five children, but one always gone. (14) ​​I also think of a two different parents I have known who had to b...

I have been working on this for a few days and know it is really long! This was my attempt to approach the evil inside us and continue on with that idea from Wright (and Solzhenitsyn) that the dividing line between good and evil runs through each of our hearts. Or the Arcade Fire song that says: "Now the preachers they talk, up on the satellite; If your looking for hell, just try looking inside." ​ 1 - Two Understandings of the Cross In a book of sermons by Reinhold Niebuhr I read the sermon The Son of Man Must Suffer . This is what I spoke on Monday in our discussion when I said that when we equate Christianity with certain knowledge we no longer need Jesus. He says there are two major ways Christians have looked to the cross for meaning: On the one hand, the death on the cross means an heroic effort of self-regarding men, whose inveterate self-love is the root of all historical evil, to transmute self-regard into self-forgetfulness, into “sacrificial love” or...