Faculty Abroad

The Yellow Brick Road Is Paved with Gold -

The Yellow Brick Road Is Paved with Gold Gold, yuan, and the end of dollar rule “He who owns the gold makes the rules.” — Anonymous A reader on Sunday’s post mentioned The Wizard of Oz. That single word—Oz—sent me back to an essay I wrote over two years ago called The Land of Ounces. I went back...

The Naked Emperor: Anatomy of the Fiat Empire -

The Naked Emperor: Anatomy of the Fiat Empire A Three-Part Mini-Series — Part Three “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” — Matthew 18:3 In Part I, we met the Builder—not a single person but an archetype, a pattern of thinking that has shaped Western...

Looking Back: The Checkmate We Saw Coming -

Looking Back: The Checkmate We Saw Coming From 2018 to the present “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” — Winston Churchill Sometimes it pays to go back and read things I’ve written before. It sheds new light. In my post Things Are Not as They Appear, I traced the long...

They Study You: What the Builders Know About Human Nature -

They Study You: What the Builders Know About Human Nature A Three-Part Mini-Series — Part One “They know us better than we know ourselves. That should frighten you.” — Shoshana Zuboff, Author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism Doesn’t it give you the creeps—that you’re being studied by the minute? Right now, somewhere yonder, a server is c...

You Think This Is About Politics. It’s Not. -

You Think This Is About Politics. It’s Not. The Third Temple and the Hidden Pattern Behind Our Endless Wars This is the capstone to The Drama You’re In series—gathering everything that came before, adding what was missing, and bringing it all to completion. “You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never pe...

The Gift We No Longer Understand -

The Gift We No Longer Understand Why We Struggle to Receive—and What It’s Costing Us “The I-Thou relationship can only be spoken with the whole being. The I-It relationship can never be spoken with the whole being.” — Martin Buber We no longer know what a gift is. The word still circulates—on birthdays, in advertisement...

The Voice We Lost: How We Learned to Silence Half Our Mind -

The Voice We Lost: How We Learned to Silence Half Our Mind “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me—she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.” — Genesis 3:12 The First Audit Listen to the first words spoken by a newly self-aware humanity. They are not filled with curiosity, wonder, or love. They are an audit. An accounting....

Four Wounds of the Western Mind -

Four Wounds of the Western Mind “The left hemisphere’s greatest triumph is the creation of a world that conforms to its own representation—and its greatest tragedy is that it has come to believe that this is the only world there is.” — Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary Three Diagnoses Last week gave us three....

The Alligator and the Caramel Popcorn -

The Alligator and the Caramel Popcorn A Dream, a Dog, and What It Taught Me About Consciousness I opened my eyes this morning and a thought was already there, fully formed: Consciousness is a word. And if we did not have that word, we would not know what it is. The moment I thought it, I...

The Bridge of Choice -

The Bridge of Choice How Your Brain Chooses Between Control and Love “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” — 2 Corinthians 12:9 I’ve spent my life feeling pulled in two directions. One voice drives me to name, plan, and secure: “Build your tower. Prove your worth.”...

Babel Fire to Pentecost Flame -

Babel Fire to Pentecost Flame THE DRAMA YOU’RE IN | THE SEPARATION | ACT I.3 The Algorithm of Exile and the Mercy of Scattering “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face...

The Family Within -

The Family Within What Neuroscience and Genesis Reveal About the Five Who Live Inside You “Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, after our likeness.’” — Genesis 1:26 Us. Our. God does not begin with “I.” From the first sentence, there is conversation. For centuries, theologians have circled ...