Author Archives for chris

Somewhere in his 50’s, David Brooks, author and social commentator, suffered an existential crisis. He and his wife of 29 years got divorced. In a midst of soul searching in profound loneliness, Brooks wrote two books, “The Road to Character” in 2015 (see review in my website) and “The Second Mountain” in 2019. Between these...

Europe’s abandonment of its Christian roots is self-evident when its constitution framers abjectly omit Christianity’s role in its history. Europe not only rejects the Christian church for its future but also excises its significance from its past. The Benedict Option, by Rod Dreher of the “The American Conservative” journal, excoriates that the new world has...

Up In The Air is about homelessness and our innate human desire to be home with family. Loosely based on Walter Kirn’s novel, the movie follows Ryan Binghan (George Clooney) crisscrossing the continent as a hired gun to fire employees whose employers are too timid to pull the trigger themselves. Ryan thrives on the road....

Evangelical reactions to Mariology fall into two main camps – an ignorant silence or an incensed rejection. There are those who know little and say even less about the place of this peasant mother of Jesus in our faith and practice. Then there are those, based on what they see and know, are violently against...

The years that I was teaching, my subway stop was in Tribeca. On top of the stairs I often came across tourists checking their guidebooks or looking for landmarks to get to where they wanted to go. What is the difference between a tourist and a pilgrim? A tourist travels to attraction places he is...

Every religion has prayers as its expression of faithful devotion.  A Tibetan monk turns his clanking prayer wheel. An orthodox Jew faces the Wailing Wall in earnest prayer. A shoeless Muslim prostrates on a small rug and bows his head towards Mecca in recital prayer. A Buddhist sits in a garden, deep in meditative prayer. ...

Sincere church folks cringe askance when i confess that ihave enemies. the notion that a cleric treats certain individuals as enemy doesn’t sit well in their assumptive spirituality. a godly leader ought to get along with everyone. in moments of resolve, i cordially note their disapproval and move on. in moments of doubts, their opprobrium...

Listening to a preacher pontificate on our existential need for validation was so validating that my alacrity had no need to validate his claim. It sounded so right. Validation is that crave for others to attest our significance in who we are and attach meaning to what we say and do. We pant for confirmation...

多言數窮 不如守中 – more words are meager; prefer hold fast to center, so say the ancient sage, Kung Tze. after twenty and more years, i have gotten custom to this simple house at sunset. who would have predicted that i would settle here for good until the sun sets on me. at his sunset years,...

Before director and co-writer Tom McCarthy made the movie Spotlight, he sought out his devout Catholic parents. Like many, they were angrily affected by the pedophilic scandal in the Catholic church. His parents’ affirmation attested McCarthy’s endeavor to translate this egregious story into a film. Spotlight, based on events that spanned more than a quarter...