MSI Press Blog

  excerpt from Joshuanism   by Tosto -  The post/Christian God A profound moment in my journey to seek and know God took place in an art gallery. I was in Seattle, visiting a friend of mine. I had some free time, and John had some free time, so I decided to fly out and kick it in the Emerald City for a few days. This was during the height of my Christian experience when I was still green behind the ears and miles away from questioning any of the marvelous things I believed. In fact, I was working at a church at the time, directing the music and worship ministry. The trip west was a welcome diversion. John and I were strolling through the gallery, surveying the local talent, when a curious painting caught my attention. John went over to ask the docent something, and I stood in front of the unusual painting, studying it deeply. The painting, you see, was titled God . But the painting itself was quite simple. The artist only used two colors: a purple sphere on a black backgr...

  Excerpt from  The Subversive Utopia   by Yasir Sakr - Preface It’s been 35 years since, as an undergraduate student, I first toured the new Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem. As I walked its streets, observing its new architecture and urban space, the Quarter simultaneously attracted and alienated, impressing upon me a mysterious schizophrenic perception. For many years I was unable to explain this contradictory experience. Little did I know then that 10 years later, in 1988, my new job as an archivist in the Louis Kahn Collection at the University of Pennsylvania would yield the clues I needed to understand the Quarter’s ambiguous allure. I could not have predicted then that I would one day articulate the experience of the Jewish Quarter in such a way that it would shape its perceptions by Israeli architects and scholars among others. It’s been almost 20 years since I finished my PHD dissertation at the School of Architecture, University of Pennsy...

Carl frequently complained of being cold during the last two months of living/dying with cancer. Even with the heat at, for me an uncomfortable, 72 degrees (when we typically maintain it at a comfortable 66 degrees). Even when wearing a sweater or even something heavier and smothered in blankets. He was always complaining about being cold, and only after he died did I find out why -- and that he really was very cold because body temperature drops when someone is dying. We were constantly struggling over how to compromise on temperature. My son and I were extremely uncomfortable with the amount of heat Carl would set the thermostat for, as well as having concerns with the cost of the amount of gas needed to keep the house so hot (dying can create immense financial stress -- a topic Cancer Diary will address in the future).  In general, cold registered for me, having grown up in Maine and having spent a few winters in Siberia, pictured above, on a very different scale from the perce...

Today's meditation from  Weekly Soul: Fifty-two Meditations on Meaningful, Joyful, and Peaceful Living   by Dr. Frederic Craigie. -2-   Miracles… seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off but upon our own perception being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.   Willa Cather   To behold the wondrous miracles of everyday life you have to see. Consider the miracle of moveable wall sections. For tens of thousands of years of human history, people created dwelling structures with portals for coming and going. They covered these portals with weavings or bear hides, which gave them some visual privacy and cut down the wind and cold, but were not particularly helpful in securing their homes against intruding animals or marauding neighbors. Then, somewhere, someone invented the hinge. With the hinge, everything changed. People could now mak...