Fundamentally

The secret of change is not to waste time fighting the old, but to use your energy to build the new.” …

What is moderation in religion, anyway, other than a tolerance for dissonance? God’s instructions, issued over a thousand years ago, will always be extreme by contemporary standards. We protect religious freedom, but we expect people to cherry-pick which religious teachings they observe. Luckily, the vast majority of believers abide by the easy, sensible rulings and sidestep the rest. It’s quite a hard skill to teach. Ignore that part, you have to say, I know God’s word is infallible, but obviously that bit is mental.

Now I was three thousand miles away, lying in a single bed in Baghdad, clinging to the bedspread despite the heat. My fingers held so lightly to life, I could have shut my eyes and let go, my body evaporating, the world unmoved by such a tiny shift.

Shouldn’t misogyny have an equal and opposite chivalric force?

In Europe you feel anxious and overwhelmed by pathetic first-world problems

What is moderation in religion

A green flyer advertised an interagency quidditch match, BYOB. Did that refer to booze or broomsticks?

Seven Pillars of Wisdom sounds a lot like 12 Rules for Life

As I lay there, pins and needles creeping through my limbs, I thought of the migrants who died every day, in the back of refrigerated trucks, thrashing their arms in the Mediterranean, falling into ravines, kicked to death by border police. I never thought I’d end up like them, but then again, they probably hadn’t expected it either. One day they’re selecting the least bruised apple at the market, the next they’re fleeing an invading army,

dripping like dye into the gallons of empty time that flowed around me.