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Manager, Therapist and Transformation

Philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre. in After Virtue, claimed that two of our culture’s emblematic professions “the Manager” and “the Therapist.” The Manager is mostly concerned with technique—with turning raw material into products, turning unskilled labor into skilled...

Don’t Miss the Rising Sun

For many years now, I’ve had a growing conviction that the great Catholic theologian Karl Rahner was right to have claimed: “The Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist at all.” He meant that people will either have a dynamic, immediate, and...

What to Do with the Time that is Given to Us

At a critical point in The Lord of the Rings, Frodo, the Hobbit whose burden it was to carry the Ring toward its destruction—the destruction that would save Middle Earth—has grown weary and disheartened. He’s afraid and uncertain. He says to the wise wizard, Gandalf...

Dr. King and The Beloved Community

I grew up in Atlanta—Martin Luther King, Jr.’s hometown—during the most intense days of the civil rights movement. The center of the movement was in Atlanta’s “Sweet Auburn” district, a vibrant African-American business and professional district, where the Ebenezer...

Head and Heart

I surely understand the opening lines of Edward Hirsch’s poem, “Self Portrait”: I lived between my heart and my head, like a married couple who can’t get along. . . My head says: “I think.” My heart says, “I feel.” Head says, “I’ve concluded”; heart says, “I wonder.”...

On the Threshold of a New Year

Thresholds can be frightening. Our ancient ancestors felt that thresholds were dwelling places for evil spirits. They believed that stepping on a threshold made them vulnerable to the spirits which lurked there, so they were careful to avoid them. Often, they posted...