Pity the precocious? The hyper-intelligent often suffer from boredom, isolation, and depression — and so genius may not be the gift we perceive it to be
As Oliver Sacks wrote, between mania and depression lies “a narrow ridge of normality.” Despite his best efforts, he sometimes slipped off that ridge
Christians have historically understood that it is not about “picking and choosing,” and that Jesus Himself is not arbitrarily throwing away some part of the law as Evans alleges here:
As a Christian, I do take some comfort in the fact that Jesus got Himself into quite a bit of trouble for his own selective literalism. Known for healing on the Sabbath, touching the untouchables, and fraternizing with prostitutes and tax collectors, Jesus liked to begin his sermons by quoting a passage of Scripture (“You have heard that it was said…”) and then turning it on its head (“but I tell you…”). Perhaps the most famous example of this technique is captured in Matthew 5:43–45, where Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”8
There is no text in any portion of the Bible that commands anyone to “hate your enemy.” Jesus is addressing either a scribal or popular misapplication of the Old Covenant Law, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” which justified the adversarial treatment of Samaritans in particular and Gentiles in general (Luke 10:25–37).
A coherent Christocentric reading of the Bible reveals that loving one’s enemy is the very heart of the gospel. Beginning in Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve become enemies of God, God, in response, sets about to love them — and all their fallen ancestors — with the self-sacrificial love that characterizes His own person. It is a complicated story, a story of love, of agape, a story that takes millennia to unfold. It culminates in a dehumanized, rejected Christ on the cross. It is the perfect picture of a God reconciling Himself to His enemies. The close reader understands that Jesus did not “overturn” the law, but perfectly and fully embodied it. Love has to be defined by His character, person, and actions in the Scripture. We cannot take a 21st me-centered definition of love and impose it on the text.
Furthermore, the preponderance of the times Jesus said, “You have heard it said that…,” He was not quoting the law itself, but rabbinical additions to the law. When He said, “but I say…,” He was stripping the law back to its root, affirming its goodness and offering Himself as its merciful fulfillment to those who could never keep it.
Rest in Peace: The Theological Legacy of Rachel Held Evans - Christian Research Institute
Q. Some paintings are very enigmatic. For instance, when we looked at Up the Hill and I said I thought the figure at the back looked a bit like a scarecrow, you said it wasn't intended that way but you were okay with people thinking that. Looking longer at the painting, I find myself fascinated by the very weird, somewhat ominous shadow, which seems like a tangible thing attached to the figure. Or there is the hard-to-understand setup of the two men with towels in LeBelle Cascade. And you cannot help but wonder what all that stuff is on the floor and the sideboard in Opium. Of course, there are also very straightforward portraits and outdoor scenes. So did you want a mixture of the more direct and the more mysterious (again, like putting together an album)?
A. Yeah, sure, but everything in life, directly or indirectly, has a great degree of mystery. To paraphrase Warren Zevon, "Some days I feel like my shadow's casting me." Persons, places, things … time itself is a mystery. You know, like, who can explain it? It's really difficult to define anything. What's slow can speed up. Love can turn into hate. Peace can turn into war. Pride can turn into humility. Anger to grief. How would you define a simple thing like a chair, for instance—something you sit on? Well, it's more than that. You can sit on a curb, or a fence. But they are not chairs. So what makes a chair a chair? Maybe it's got arms? A cross has arms, so has a person. Maybe the chair doesn't have arms? Okay, so it's a post or a flagpole. But those aren't chairs. A chair has four legs. So does a table. So does a dog. But they're not chairs either. So a chair is a mystical thing. It's got a divine presence.
There's a gloomy veil of chaos that surrounds it. And "chaos" in Greek means "air." So we live in chaos and we breathe it. Is it any wonder why some people snap and go crazy? Mystery is ancient. It's the essence of everything. It violates all conventions of beauty and understanding. It was there before the beginning, and it will be there beyond the end. We were created in it. The Mississippi Sheiks recorded a song called "Stop and Listen." To most music aficionados, it's but a ragtime blues. But to me, it's words of wisdom. Saint Paul said we see through the glass darkly. There's plenty of mystery in nature and contemporary life. For some people, it's too harsh to deal with. But I don't see it that way.
~Bob Dylan, interviewed 2011
Jennifer L. Thurston, Black Robes, White Judges: The Lack of Diversity on the Magistrate Judge Bench, 82 Law and Contemporary Problems 63-102 (2019
Washington Post –
Apple says, “What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone.” Our privacy experiment showed 5,400 hidden app trackers guzzled our data — in a single week.
“…You might assume you can count on Apple to sweat all the privacy details. After all, it
touted in a recent ad, “What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone.” My investigation suggests otherwise. IPhone apps I discovered tracking me by passing information to third parties — just while I was asleep — include Microsoft OneDrive, Intuit’s Mint, Nike, Spotify, The Washington Post and IBM’s the Weather Channel. One app, the crime-alert service Citizen, shared personally identifiable information in violation of its published privacy policy.