I’ll start at the end of this 12-minute, intriguing TED Talk. Daniel Reisel, a neuroscientist who has studied the brains of socio-paths, asks us whether we should be concerned not only about changing the brains of criminals but also our own. I find the whole idea of changing our brains – and along with our brains our character and potential – simply fascinating because that idea emerges at the intersection of two deeply held beliefs. On the one hand, we often think of character as something that can be developed and so we stress moral and character development in our schools and churches and civic associations alike. On the other hand,...

On this, St. Patrick’s Day, I think it’s worth recalling that St. Patrick is known not only for converting Ireland to Christianity, and not only for banishing all the snakes from Ireland, but also for being a major advocate and defender of the Doctrine of the Trinity. Which, when you think about just how difficult a feat that really is, may be the most stunning element of Patrick’s resume. For how do we explain or even understand that God is one God, indivisible, and yet also three persons, distinct in identity? When I was a child, my Mom tried to help me understand the Trinity by comparing it to water. Although H2-O is one...

Parents do a lot of things. We try to teach our children values. We provide them with home, clothing, education, and more. We protect them whenever necessary and possible and – often much harder – try to let them to struggle when that seems more important. And, of course and most importantly, we love them…deeply, truly, more than they will ever know until they have children of their own. But I wonder if another thing we do – whether we know it or not – is also frame the world for them, provide them with a sense of what is possible and real, and prepare them to accept — or reject — the terms of the world in which they...

Over the last two days, I’ve written posts about leadership and change – in particular, about transformative change and the kind of leadership necessary to engage in the disruption that is part and parcel of transformation. I think all of this is true and important and valuable and that this kind of leadership is, frankly, quite rare. But I also think there’s a danger in focusing on the rare leader who can inspire transformative change. Or, indeed, focusing on any element of leadership that seems rare and unique. Because the thing is, each of us is called to lead every day. More than that, each of us can and does lead already,...

This is another fantastic commercial that represents an emerging approach to advertising that seeks to empower its audience. It’s something of a counter-cultural approach in that most of advertising for nearly the last century has been dominated by what Jonah Sachs calls “inadequacy marketing.” Such marketing seeks to create in you a sense of lack – the belief that you do not have enough, even that you are not enough – in order to promise you that if you purchase the product being advertised you will not experience that sense of lack any longer. In his wonderful book, Winning the Story Wars, Sachs describes the history of this...

At first, I wasn’t sure whether to put this under preaching, or maybe worship, since that’s the ostensible subject matter, or humor. But of course it is about humor, both 1) the effective use of humor to make fun of ourselves and our world and invite us thereby to imagine different possibilities and 2) what can go happen when the joke goes awry. Sometimes humor fails because it’s not done well – a poorly told joke or ill-timed punch line. Sometimes it fails because the hearer doesn’t have enough context to make sense of it – the “you had to be there” humorous stories usually fall into this category. And sometimes it fails...