From Nostalgia to Something Better

Country music songwriters, politicians, and marketers know the power of nostalgia. And better times past can be more than rose-tinged memories. Childhood should be safer with fewer cares than adulthood. So songs, campaigns, and ads invite us back to better times. When...

Looking Up to Move Forward

As if no one ever told me to watch my step, I stub my toe on the uneven step, trail rock, bed post, door jam, or canted sidewalk slab, as I have untold times before, and as induction tells me I will until God coats everything in smooth, soft gold. Experience tells us...

Images Are Closer Than They Appear

When I describe setting up a telescope on a mountain in Colorado, people often respond with something between a joke and perplexity, since the altitude of the mountain will diminish the distance to my astronomical target so little as not to be measurable: 1 or 2 miles...

Of Our Own Tipping

This part is fog: I am 12 or 13. The youth group at my church is holding a Valentine’s Day Banquet. I am attired in my best suit for the “formal” affair, and somehow I have a date I do not know and will not remember. We have collected our salads and are about to sit...

Handwavium Won’t Work

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, Mrs. Whatsit and Mrs. Who notwithstanding. The 10-year-old version of me that read something of A Wrinkle in Time only passed one portion down to my adult self: where Whatsit and Who explain how an ant could...