Is narrative inherent in human life or imposed on it? Is a person's life just a story? Or is story a device we place on someone's life to try to get a hold of it? Some while ago I thought about that after doing a number of personal profiles for the Chicago Tribune. One such profile was on a rabbi who was a tour guide in Israel and whose parents were Holocaust survivors; another was on a Filipino immigrant and…

Introduction Elderly people board busses to Canada to buy prescription drugs for less than they are priced in the U.S. Savvy travelers use "hidden cities" and split tickets to qualify for lower airfares. Couch potatoes disconnect their TV cables every three months so they can qualify for "new subscriber" rates. Supermarket cashiers swipe their own "preferred customer" cards for consumers who "left their card at home." People think about hiring CPAs to figure out what telephone plan will be the…

In 1536, a 27 year old exile from France addressed Roman Catholic King Francis regarding a new religious movement that Francis opposed. This exile takes pains to deny that the teaching of the movement is, in fact "new" and "of recent birth." To the contrary, says the humanist scholar, the gospel preached in this movement is as "ancient" as Paul's gospel. Moreover, "if the contest were to be decided by patristic authority, the tide of victory would turn to our…

Hymn to Spring, with Seven-Fold Amen   The moon and the stars glide more quickly through night, now that sun has insisted on earlier light, which wakens the birds whose matutinal song is a paean exulting that dark's at last gone. Sing praises, sing praises, for spring has returned! Glory, amen and amen! From earth and from branches sprout leaflets in green so brand new it's as though it had never been seen before in the world, and in myriad…