FIRST PERSON | The Power of Burning Man
In the summer of 2015 I had the profoundly life-changing experience of participating in Burning Man, a weeklong, transformative cultural event set in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. Burning Man is best characterized by... Read More
FIRST PERSON | When Strangers Ask Me
I tend to cringe when strangers ask me where I’m from. In that split-second, my tongue turns into a spring mattress in bad need of oiling, creaking with strain as I get ready to answer.... Read More
Concerning Bullies
No one wants to admit that they were bullied. It’s bad enough to be privately humiliated by the aggressions of someone else. To then talk about it, to release it from its cage, rarely serves... Read More
Little Hell on the Prairie
Reflecting on recent developments within the humanist movement while chatting with a friend, I was reminded of a single, short snippet among my fifty-plus years of existence on this planet that had a profound impact... Read More
The Personal Geography of Deconversion
Until I was nine, the church we attended was forty-five minutes away; we went twice every Sunday, so altogether that was three hours spent in a car. Those trips are vivid in my mind: passing... Read More
Sexual Relativity and Gender Revolution
CHARLES DARWIN'S EVOLUTION, Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis, and Albert Einstein’s relativity have all become fundamental concepts in modern science, but if you ask the person on the street to explain any of them (especially the latter)... Read More
A Ladder Is to Climb
THE SOFTCOVER BOOK, given to me at age thirteen, was called Ten Rungs by Martin Buber. The philosophical sayings were different from the philosophy books my dad used to read to me many evenings, yet... Read More
