There are few things more satisfying that making something – putting in time and effort and having something tangible, something you can hold in your hands, when you’re finished. Fewer and fewer of us find ourselves doing that kind of work. At the end of the day, there’s isn’t much many of us can hold on to. It doesn’t mean that what we’re doing isn’t worthwhile, important, or have significant consequences; just that the fruits of much of our labor is intangible. Which might explain why I liked the following video so much. In just over three minutes it shows 299 hours of labor – along with a lot of wood, sweat,...

“Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest one of all?” That most famous of lines from children’s fairy tales has been brought back to the silver screen this year in two major films, one a comedy starring Julia Roberts, the other a dark fantasy with Charlize Theron. But I’m not writing about either of these films; rather, I’m interested in the subject that animates both movies, the fairy tale that inspired them, and increasingly our whole culture: beauty. It is for the sake of beauty that the Queen is willing not just to abandon Snow White to her fate but actually seek to murder her. And it’s a quest for beauty that is...

I’ll be the first to admit it: I stink at Sabbath. It’s not that I don’t know how to rest or relax or have fun. There are few things I enjoy more, in fact, than playing a game of Hearts or Settlers of Catan or whatever with my kids. It’s just that I don’t do that enough. But it’s not even that. It’s more that if I have an opening of time, my first thought isn’t to rest and to give thanks for the opportunity to rest. Heck, not only is that not my first thought, it’s pretty much my last thought. Instead, the first (second, third, and fourth as well) thing that occurs to me is, “What...