by Stuart Strachan Jr. | Dec 2, 2020 | Uncategorized
The writer Oscar Wilde said, “Art is utterly useless.” Notice he did not say worthless. He was critiquing the utilitarian impulse of our world that measures worth based on usefulness or practicality. Does it accomplish something? Does it get stuff done? Wilde...
by Stuart Strachan Jr. | Nov 14, 2020 | Gratitude, Sermon Illustrations
In Budapest, a man goes to the rabbi and complains, “Life is unbearable. There are nine of us living in one room. What can I do?” The rabbi answers, “Take your goat into the room with you.” The man in incredulous, but the rabbi insists. “Do as I say and come back in...
by Stuart Strachan Jr. | Nov 5, 2020 | Uncategorized
A century ago, men were following with bated breath the march of Napoleon and waiting feverishly for news of the war. And all the while in their own homes, babies were being born. But who could think about babies? Everybody was thinking about battles. In one year,...
by Stuart Strachan Jr. | Oct 14, 2020 | Uncategorized
In an interview with MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle, Megan Garber asks what makes in-person conversation unique, compared to all the other ways we communicate these days: Conversations, as they tend to play out in person, are messy—full of pauses and interruptions and...
by Stuart Strachan Jr. | Oct 8, 2020 | Uncategorized
As he reflected on his life’s work, the famed author of Les Miserables, The Count of Monte Cristo, and many others, Victor Hugo describes what he believed about life after death, that heaven would actually entail a continuation of his life’s work: I feel within me...
