I remember seeing the movie The Game, starring Michael Douglas and Sean Penn on an airplane during a business trip in the late 1990s. Michael Douglas plays a financier named Nicholas, who, having experienced the trauma of witnessing his father’s suicide, throws himself into his work, in the process estranging his brother Conrad, played by...
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“Beyond the door, there’s peace, I’m sure And I know there’ll be no more tears in heaven” There are mysteries in this life, questions with answers that are hard to come by, difficult to make sense of, perplexing to live with. The meaning of heaven, and the meaning of earth, are like that. What are...
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Over the past months much has remained the same. For many of us this season has stretched longer than our initial predictions, and then longer than our revised predictions. At The Washington Institute we have striven to engage with our cultural moment, but at times we also dabble in contributing to culture. Several months into...
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Missing The Main Event A few summers ago, one of my sons and I were headed to a concert together. We were on the way, but an accident on the road stopped traffic for about an hour. As a result, we ended up missing one of our favorite bands. We were literally walking up to...
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In Alsace, France there is a sixteenth century painting, the Isenheim Altarpiece, which depicts the Crucifixion with John the Baptist and Mary on either side of Jesus. Many details are noteworthy here, but what I love most is John’s finger. He is pointing to Jesus. While it may seem insignificant compared to other imagery in...
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“Practice resurrection.” – Wendell Berry There’s a school of thought that says that moments of beauty and goodness are escapist – they distract us from life’s hard realities. Sweetness is sappiness, nature walks are flights from reality, anything picturesque is saccharine. Here’s an example of a moment where that theory fails to explain what is...
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