Essays

What do Virginia Woolf, Robert Heinlein, C. S. Lewis and Douglas Coupland have in common? For me, it's a used bookstore in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, where I stopped during a [...]

In the gospels of Luke and Matthew, Jesus teaches the disciples how to pray the Our Father. In Genesis, Abraham shows us how to haggle with God. It’s about Sodom and [...]

PART ONE You’ve probably heard about how, in the United Kingdom, a joke got out of hand. The very prim and proper British Natural Environment Research Council came up with [...]

In this age of Trump, I find that, more and more, I’m thinking of my friends Neil, Ben and Jean. In this time of hate and fear-mongering, I want to [...]

Picture this: Pentecost, the descent of the Holy Spirit, tongues of fire and the followers of Jesus going out into the world to proclaim the good news. A large crowd [...]

Back when I was a Chicago Tribune reporter, I had a five-minute telephone interview with Donald Trump about his new Chicago hotel, and he made a point to mention twice [...]

In the eighth chapter of the Book of Nehemiah in the Bible, the Jewish people are celebrating a feast in which they are re-accepting God’s law and covenant. It is, they are [...]

This essay originally appeared in the Chicago Tribune on December 31, 2015 My brother David Michael died suddenly a few days before Thanksgiving, and I’m thinking a lot about him [...]

Enough is enough. It is time — right now — for the Republican Party to expel Donald Trump. If the GOP acts now, it will not only do the right [...]

by Bassano, vintage print, 14 June 1939 A young William Faulkner admired R. H. (Ralph Hale) Mottram, comparing the literary achievement of the British writer’s trilogy of novels [...]