Andy Unedited
Exploring Books, Life, and Writing
In Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library, Nora Seed (single, unemployed and 35) is full of regrets. Every facet of her life has lapsed into failure. She decides to end it all, but unexpectedly finds herself in the Midnight Library. Here she has an opportunity to try a succession of different lives by reversing past decisions. …
Reading Camus in time of Covid with my fifteen-year-old grandson has been one of the many unexpected twists of this past year. Somehow he became interested in the existentialists. I thought Camus’s book The Plague might be the easiest way in since it is a novel (rather than dense philosophy) and because of its timeliness. …
Tomorrow, January 20, the United States will inaugurate its 46th president, Joe Biden. Given the contentious political year it has been, I thought it appropriate to repost my blog from February 8, 2019, about an important book by Republican Senator Ben Sasse (Nebraska) regarding the non-political reasons for our divides. Why are Americans so at …
December 21, the darkest day of the year, is my wife’s favorite. Why? Because it means that now every day will have more and more light. Scholars don’t know and the Bible isn’t clear about what time of year Jesus was born. Nonetheless, December 25 is appropriate because (in the northern hemisphere at least) we …
In a day when so many of us think we are RIGHT while so many others are WRONG, Reinhold Niebuhr’s neglected classic, The Irony of American History, deserves wide reading. Published the year I was born (1952), in the context of a world dominated by the sharply defined conflict between democracy and communism, its clear …
Martin Schleske is a lifelong luthier (violinmaker) whose art has interwoven with his faith such that the two are one. His recent volume, The Sound of Life’s Unspeakable Beauty, is his meditation on both. When a friend gave me his book, one of the most beautiful and profound works I’ve read, he wisely suggested I …
The problem with talking to strangers is that most of us think we know how to “read” people. Gestures, tone of voice, facial expressions seem self-evident. As Malcolm Gladwell reveals in his book Talking to Strangers, they are not. Both Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax met Hitler multiple times and thought him trustworthy. Why? Dozens, …
Retirement isn’t an idea you find in the Bible. Yes, the march of time slows us down, and we need to transition to a new rhythm, allowing the next generation to take the lead. But sipping drinks with little umbrellas by the beach for months on end is not the ambition recommended by Peter, Paul, …
When widespread coronavirus restrictions first began to take effect last month, I was in an airport. I suddenly became acutely aware of people around me serving food, cleaning tables, maintaining equipment, and many more. Clearly, I thought, I have not appreciated such people enough or sufficiently expressed my thanks. They (along with other more obvious …
A Lenten Reflection When the thought flashes through my mind that I am better than others, better than those in other churches or other cultures or the other political party (or more likely that I am better than those in both political parties!), I try to remember Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s well-known comment from The Gulag Archipelago, …