By: Betsy on February 13, 2025
I was walking through a mall in Oxford to grab a coffee when I saw a crowd of mums with buggies all drinking the same brand of coffee I was pursuing. All the babies were around nine to eighteen months, and their little hands each clutched a screen. Research has confirmed our gut instinct that…
By: Darren Banek on February 13, 2025
The Coca-Cola Company had a branding disaster in the late 1980s with “New Coke.” Initially introduced in the marketplace in 1985 as a substitute for Coca-Cola, it was not gaining the traction the firm hoped for. It could be argued that it was a disastrous rollout followed by a significant rejection from the marketplace.…
By: Ivan Ostrovsky on February 13, 2025
Smash the Technopoly! Who knew that around 50% wish cell phones had never been invented. McLuhan asserts, “Each technology conveys an implicit message that transforms us, instills new desires, and fosters fresh feelings of possibility.” [1] I like the example of samurais and their use of swords. This example helps us understand how a tool…
By: Robert Radcliff on February 13, 2025
I’ve been familiar with Jonathan Haidt for the last couple of years. I subscribe to his Substack, After Babel, and have read his most recent book, Anxious Generation. Today, I want to share what I’ve learned from this week’s articles and create an idea that is not new. I want to understand people who ‘find…
By: Alex Mwaura on February 13, 2025
According to an article on Stanford Medicine, Dopamine, the main chemical involved in addiction, is secreted from certain nerve tracts in the brain when we engage in a rewarding experience such as finding food, clothing, shelter, or a sexual mate. Nature designed our brains to feel pleasure when these experiences happen because they increase our…
By: Rich on February 12, 2025
James Madison wrote about the dangers of faction—a group passionately united for one cause at the expense of the rights of other citizens—and the ability for the Union to control this threat.[1] Madison felt that the size of the nation would prohibit widespread faction. “The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their…
By: Jess Bashioum on February 12, 2025
An article pops up in my NEWS feed about the ails of AI or I overhear concerned parents talking about how to limit their child’s phone use and it takes everything in me to not roll my eyes. I have a visceral overreaction that causes me to snark under my breath, “this technology is here…
By: Joff Williams on February 12, 2025
After reading through this past week’s material, I wonder what it means to have a ‘digital community’–something many have now accepted as a given reality for those interacting online for work and play. Do these words overlap sufficiently to be relevant to one another, or are they too different? What are the costs and benefits…
By: Joff Williams on February 7, 2025
In Mercy Ships, all long-term crew assent to the statement of faith (The Apostles’ Creed), but short-term crew are not required to. Consequently, short-term crew are a mix of backgrounds, including committed, mature Christians and those with no personal commitment to the Christian faith but willing to live by the organization’s Code of Conduct, which…
By: Linda Mendez on February 7, 2025
Aaron Rodgers is an NFL quarterback regarded by some as one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. He started his professional career with the Green Bay Packers, where he played for 18 faithful seasons, only to be traded to the NY Jets in 2023. During his first season with the Jets, Rodgers injured his…
By: Ivan Ostrovsky on February 6, 2025
We were in Oregon when three of my friends came up with a wild idea: to hike three ten-thousand-foot mountains in a single day! Maybe it’s not crazy, but it’s downright foolish. Pressured by the fear of missing out, I decided to join them on this journey. Joseph Campbell, in his book *The Hero with…
By: Jess Bashioum on February 6, 2025
Talab spent most of her days waking before dawn, leading her quibens through her beautiful land to eat, drink and exercise. At the end of the day, she climbed the hill to watch the sunset before she would herd her quibens back into the safe walls of the pen. Quibens gave her people meat, milk…
By: Michael Hansen on February 6, 2025
As a 10-year-old, I loved reading Tolkien’s works and the adventures in The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I was mesmerized by the stories of the mythological creatures in Middle Earth and amazed at how the heroes of the stories presented themselves in the small, unassuming figure of a Hobbit. In The…
By: Judith McCartney on February 6, 2025
My Sparkly Green Banana Seat Bike Campbell discusses the universal structure of a Monomyth. It is a blueprint for a hero’s journey. This journey has several stages that a hero navigates. This is my story. I grew up as the 6th child of an immigrant family new to Canada in the 70’s, we had eight…
By: Christian Swails on February 6, 2025
The Hero Jesus, the hero of the Christian story, is considered the physical, earthly manifestation of the cosmic Christ – one-third of the eternal trinitarian Godhead (Father, Son, and Holy Spirt) that Christians link back to Elohim – the creator God of Genesis (and later Yahweh). Jesus is ultimate divinity wrapped in humanity – tabernacled…
By: Betsy on February 6, 2025
I was born in Ibuye, situated in the Ngozi province in Burundi. I was the second generation to be born in that house, close to the border to Rwanda and built by my grandparents’ hands while he discipled a group of men in the art of building and following Jesus. My arrival was not met…
By: Mika Harry on February 6, 2025
“It has always been the prime function of mythology and rite to supply the symbols that carry the human spirit forward, in counteraction to those other constant human fantasies that tend to tie it back.”[1] Many biblical characters inspire us to help us move toward God and His kingdom’s purposes. One such narrative character and…
By: Alex Mwaura on February 6, 2025
It’s been a tough week, personally and professionally. It doesn’t matter how much I have “seen” or “experienced” it’s often easy for me to forget that I cannot live beyond the present moment. Yes, we can dream of the future, relive the past but life is lived in the present. In that glorious inhale and…
By: Jeremiah Gómez on February 6, 2025
I could tell you about the time my Tata Pablo was buried alive, trapped in a copper mine collapse. I could tell you about the journey my maternal grandparents took, leaving their middle-class existence in the Midwest to try and launch a new kind of incarnational ministry on the U.S. southern border—full of trials and…
By: Darren Banek on February 6, 2025
As I prepared for an inspectional reading of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, I was drawn to the idea that storytelling could be formulaic. As someone more accustomed to reading a story told through digits and data, I have not deeply contemplated the idea that universal and timeless structures exist within literature or mythology.…
