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The Brothers Grimm were the first to tell the dark tale of Rumpelstiltskin. And although it was certainly not their intention, the fairy tale eerily parallels so many women’s experience of abortion … Rumpelstiltskin is the story of a poor miller’s daughter, locked up in a tower... Read More →

The Old Testament’s story of Abraham’s near sacrifice of Isaac (Gen. 22: 1-18) is in many ways unintelligible to modern man. How could God command a father to kill his son? How could God even desire human sacrifice? And how could we believe in such a God? Read against... Read More →

  In the upstate New York community of Kingston, a synagogue that had fallen into disuse several years ago was sold and converted into a deluxe residence, housing apartments with splendid gardens and scenic views of the Hudson River. Most of the exterior and interior... Read More →

Americans are right to complain about rude-and-crude comments by President Trump and other politicians today. We should realize, though, that our entire culture has become much ruder and cruder over several decades. Provocative clothing styles, bathroom and other crude “humor” on... Read More →

  Last week my office held a baby shower for a coworker and his eight-months-pregnant wife. It is their first baby, and there was lots of conversation about the nursery, the childbirth classes—all the usual things. And there was one of those cutesy baby-shower games: On... Read More →

  Imagine a conversation in which one executive confides to another something like this: “I don’t really want to hire that African-American guy,” says exec No. 1. “I understand, buddy, but legally we can’t reject a person based on race,” replies exec No. 2. “Geez. What do we... Read More →

Jack and I met in 1982 when we both arrived as freshmen at an engineering school in Pittsburgh.  The school assigned us to the same floor of the freshmen male dormitory, a hulking bunker of a building that smelled perpetually of college-boy sweat and marijuana. Though Jack and I... Read More →

America recently has been roiled by wholesale efforts to erase history. Monuments go missing in the middle of the night. Undergraduate snowflakes demand “trigger warnings” before they read a book that might tackle somebody or something ugly, hateful, or even controversial.... Read More →

  Blow on the coal of the heart. The candles in churches are out. The lights have gone out in the sky Blow on the coal of the heart And we’ll see by and by.      —from J.B.: A Play in Verse, by Archibald MacLeish   Cornflower blue skies and crisp breezes are what I... Read More →

  We had been close friends for twelve years, and I was blessed to be with him as the doctor helped him die. Growing stiffer and frailer over the last year or so, he had still enjoyed life, including a short walk we’d taken just a few days before, with him happily chasing... Read More →