Only the shallow know themselves. – Oscar Wilde Wilde spoke these words more than 100 years ago. If they’re true, then we should have a culture full of self-actualized people who’ve ascended to the tip-top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Popular culture that celebrates surface appearances with relentless devotion. Any Warhol captured this devotion perfectly:…

Twenty years ago, author Anne Lamott was ambushed by her unexpected pregnancy. Her best selling 1993 memoir, Operating Instructions, describes her tumultuous first year as a single mother after her son Sam’s birth. When Sam turned 19, he told his mom that he and girlfriend Amy were about to become parents, a life-altering event for…

Is there anything more inviting than a stack of books waiting TBR (to be read)? Whether they’re piled on a nightstand, a coffee table or next to a Adirondack chair parked alongside a freshwater lake, the promise of new worlds awaits between the covers of the books in a TBR pile. And there’s something almost…

David and Penna were inseparable, bound together by the intensity of first love. Penna is a quiet 18 year-old outsider and the only child of a mother with whom she has a complex, strained relationship. She connected with David over their shared passion for art, and their all-consuming relationship created a cocoon around the pair,…

I read Katelyn Beaty’s excellent review of Lauren Winner’s new book Still: Notes On A Mid-Faith Crisis (HarperOne, 2012) when the book released, and it immediately shot to the top of my “must read” list. I’ve been a Winner fan since I read her wonderful Girl Meets God in 2002. Still is the story of…

A couple of decades ago, I stood along the side of a busy highway for an hour a couple of Sunday afternoons holding a sign that read “Abortion Kills Children”, along with about 75 others. Some honked as they drove by in a gesture of solidarity with those of us in the life chain. Others…