Robert Krulwich, NPR’s science correspondent, recently posted on his blog the story of a remarkable nine-year old boy who gets dubbed “the philosopher” for his views on the world, the universe, the question of free will and destiny, and more, all in just a few minutes. Except, as Krulwich explains via his interview of the film’s maker, the boy isn’t that unusual. Bright, yes; extraordinary, probably not. Except perhaps in this: his parents have gotten into the habit of asking him profound questions and taking seriously his answers. His parents, in other words, trust his ability to think, to reason, to wonder, and to offer his...

Lent is a time of self-denial, a chance to remember and identify with the sufferings of our Lord. It is also an opportunity to make do with less and in this way to identify also with all those who have so little, those with whom our Lord identified. That gets increasingly more difficult – and simultaneously more important – in a word that seems to grow more materialistic by the day. It is challenging to watch the ads of television and across the media and not succumb to believing that we just can’t get buy without that new ______________ (fill in the blank). In this light, Lent and its call to self-denial is a gift, an opportunity to...

One of the first questions I ask when I think about donating to a particular charity is what their overhead is – that is, how much money the spend on personnel and marketing and everything else it takes to administer their relief efforts. This kind of information is readily available and I use it to determine a sense of the charity’s efficiency – the lower the overhead, the more money goes directly to the recipients of the aid I and others give. Of course I assume the reverse is true as well: the higher the overhead the more wasteful the charity is and less deserving of my support. In this provocative TED Talk based on his book...

It’s not often that I laugh out loud at an internet video. But this was one of those times. You may be familiar with the categorization of how people adapt to and adopt new technology. There are the innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards, spread across the typical bell curve as displayed in the graphic below. I’m one of those goofy people who thinks of myself as an early adopter but in actual practice fall somewhere between late majority and laggard. I had one of the first touch screen smart phones (way before the iPhone) but never learned to do more than make phone calls. When the iPhone came out I...

Of late, two great interests of mine have been 1) working with people to help make the Bible more “useful” and available to us in our daily lives and 2) helping all of us think about money from the perspective of faith. On the “usefulness” of the Bible I know this subject can be a bit tricky. I don’t want to reduce the value of the Bible to self-help advice. Rather, what I mean is that if we don’t find ourselves thinking about the biblical stories in relation to our daily lives, or if the only time with think about the Bible at all is on Sunday, then I don’t see why we’ll keep coming to church. I mean, pretty much all we do...

Kid President has taken the nation by storm. His “pep talk” has had more than 10 million views in the last month and many of his other videos – all designed, as he says, to make grown-ups less boring and the world a better place – have had a wide viewing. But who is Kid President? Turns out, it’s an eight year old boy by the name of Rob. Actually, he goes by Robbie (and not “the Robster,” as you’ll discover). (His last name has been withheld…by his mom.) The other guy behind Kid President is the videographer, producer, and friend, Brad. (I’m not sure who’s withholding Brad’s last name!) But it’s more...