“He takes her pain into his hands.” Wanting to pay attention—in that deepest way that Simone Weil calls us to —I have been reading a novel by Eugene Vodolazkin, set in 15th-century Russia, always an ambitious empire, too often an arrogant empire. While born in Kiev (contemporary Ukraine), Vodolazkin lives in St. Petersburg (contemporary Russia);...
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“He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.” These words have been running through my mind the last weeks, thinking through ideas about metanarrative and narrative, about what we believe to be the Great Story of All of Life, and our own smaller stories. I have been reading Friedrich...
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“I choose not to walk by it….” Ashley Marsh, Opelika, Alabama, 21st-century “Having heard all of this, you may choose to look the other way…but you can never again say that you did not know.” William Wilberforce, London, England, 18th-century This past week I was drawn into a wonderful, even if weighty gathering, the Local...
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I majored in geography in college because I love people, places, and the space between cultures. Most of my undergrad courses focused on development issues in Central and South America, covering both the theory and implementation of modern development strategies. My favorite part of these courses, the thing that kept me engaged with my coursework,...
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