Steveawiggins

LATEST ARTICLES ( 4576 )

• Psalm 151b

  

  I can’t claim to know much about Sinéad O’Connor. When she did her Saturday Night Live act a few years back, I remember the outrage among several Nashotah... Read more

  Posted on 21 June 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• The Call of Madness

  

  Picture this: the wind is howling outside your tent, violently snapping the fabric. The temperature outside is well below freezing, and you are camping at the... Read more

  Posted on 20 June 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Veni Creator Spiritus

  

  Over 100 billion have been made. Not McDonald’s hamburgers, this time, but Crayola crayons. For many of us, Crayola is one of the distinct scents of childhood,... Read more

  Posted on 19 June 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• International Panic Day

  

  Holidays have diverse origins. Some appear to have been made up in a fit of madness, bearing no particular relevance to anything. Read more

  Posted on 18 June 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Medjugorje Matrix

  

  “Expect a miracle,” Oral Roberts used to sign off, “and a miracle is yours today.” Physicists tend to be a bit more hard-nosed about the issue. In a... Read more

  Posted on 17 June 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Inspired. Absolute. Final.

  

  Recently I spent some time in my native Pennsylvania. Doing so sometimes makes me believe in a bizarre kind of predestination. Read more

  Posted on 16 June 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Private Religion

  

  Some things are best left private. I don’t know what possessed me to request a car maintenance visit first thing in the morning on a Saturday. Read more

  Posted on 15 June 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Global Warning

  

  “Sticks and stones,” the childhood wisdom goes, “may break my bones, but words will never harm me.” We were taught that little mantra as a response to being... Read more

  Posted on 14 June 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Missing Apocalypses

  

  Sharknados aside, we seem to be in a lull of apocalypses at the moment. In the run-up to the change of the millennium and 2012, we perhaps had our fill of dire... Read more

  Posted on 13 June 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Programming God

  

  Robots have been part of my world far longer than I ever recognized. Still, growing up in a small town in the 1960s, their impact was fairly minimal—they may... Read more

  Posted on 12 June 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• St. Ghost

  

  Since they combine two of my soft spots—local history and ghost stories—books telling the tales of home-town specters are compelling in a homespun way. Read more

  Posted on 11 June 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Real Reading Rainbow

  

  Libraries rule. According to recent studies libraries rate higher than religious institutions, according to public surveys, in their usefulness to society. Read more

  Posted on 10 June 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Clockwork Universe

  

  In a clockwork universe, time is an essential interpretive factor. Those of us constantly crushed for time hardly realize just how recent of an invention it... Read more

  Posted on 09 June 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Jonahado

  

  Some movies are so bad that they become classics. Some are just plain bad. The jury in my head is still out on Sharknado. The story, obviously tongue-in-cheek,... Read more

  Posted on 08 June 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• The Fault in Whose Stars?

  

  Theodicy. I’m no theologian, but the problem of suffering erects a wall ever higher between wanting to believe and actual experience. Many great thinkers have... Read more

  Posted on 07 June 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Uisge Beatha

  

  Water is essential for life. Life as we know it, in any case. It is no surprise, then, that many religions incorporate water into their rituals. Read more

  Posted on 05 June 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Inerrant, Indeed

  

  The other day at work, I discovered a huge Bible. This one was truly massive, in three volumes, almost too heavy to lift. As I pulled down the last fascicle,... Read more

  Posted on 04 June 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Vive La Compagnie

  

  I’m cleaning out the closet at work. I doubt that either J. C. L. Gibson or Nicolas Wyatt envisioned my future thus. Edinburgh University was exotic and... Read more

  Posted on 03 June 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Two Roads Divergent

  

  One of the most hopeful signs for culture is the quality of young adult fiction on the market. Since I’m now in the book industry, Publisher’s Weekly is require... Read more

  Posted on 02 June 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Singing the Truth

  

  Attending a local high school choral concert recently, I arrived late. That’s fairly common since the bus from New York is often quite tardy—arriving forty... Read more

  Posted on 01 June 2014 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY