Faith Matters

There were 15 people in my house when the well ran dry. It was Thanksgiving, and everyone knew that they did not have to flush every time. Those who were spending the night had learned how to take navy showers: turn the water on long enough to get wet, turn it off, soap yourself, turn the water on long enough to rinse, and turn it off again. If the water ever gets really nice and hot, then you know that you have left it on too long.Everyone knew this, but we still ran out of water. When I turned the kitchen tap to fill the coffee pot after Thanksgiving dinner, all that came out was a long airy gasp. “We’re out of water!” I yelled.

“Social entrepreneurship" involves innovators who address problems in society and advance a particular social mission to serve a larger good. We Christians have long had people who fulfilled this role, people who founded the Salvation Army, Goodwill and many hospitals and universities.But in the last few decades churches and denominations seem to have lost their steam. Have we Christians lost our sense of social entrepreneurship?

Some friends of mine are avid labyrinth walkers and have recommended the practice to me. But though I’ve long admired the floor of Chartres Cathedral—and once had the pleasure of seeing my children race around it at top speed before they climbed the tower and searched the high vaults for bats—I’ve never been on a formal retreat involving labyrinths. Perhaps that’s because I’m more familiar with informal collapses than with formal retreats. Fortunately an economic alternative has suggested itself: puddle hopping.

Josh Waitzkin, the chess prodigy who was the inspiration for the film Searching for Bobby Fischer, describes his approach to learning in a new book, The Art of Learning. Waitzkin refers to his experiences, first as a child learning chess, and then as a young adult learning to become a martial arts master.“It is rarely a mysterious technique that drives us to the top,” he says, “but rather a profound mastery of what may well be a basic skill set. Depth beats breadth any day of the week, because it opens a channel for the intangible, unconscious, creative components of our hidden potential.” Waitzkin calls the process “a journey in the pursuit of excellence.”

Jeremy M. Loveless. Nathanael J. Doring. Richard A. Bennett. James A. Funkhouser. J. Adan Garcia. According to a recent article in the New York Times, these are the names of the five soldiers killed in Iraq over the three-day Memorial Day weekend this year. If I had nothing else to say in this column, I would also name the 24 soldiers killed over Memorial Day weekends since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, along with the 4,000-some Americans who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq since the wars in those countries began. I wish I could also name the Afghan and Iraqi dead, but I do not know anyone who keeps track of their names.