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< Back Sufi Beatles David Cowles May 30, 2026 “The Beatles give us a model for the sanctification of everyday life…saints live in Time Square too.” I don’t care about the Beatles. I don’t care about their fantastic music, their chaotic lives, their internal conflicts, their sad break-up or even John’s premature death. I only care about the work, the corpus , the lyrics they left behind and they “lead you to an overwhelming question” (Eliot): Do the Beatles’ songs and films contain coded messages with hidden meanings? The Beatles may be the most iconic cultural phenomenon of the post-WW II era. Whether their corpus is to be taken at face value as pure, mindless entertainment, or whether it should be mined for cutting edge philosophical, cosmological, and spiritual insights, is absolutely central to any Intellectual History of this period. And no one is more outspoken on this issue than the Beatles themselves. And their answer is a resounding No! Over and over again, the Beatles have told us that their music is just that, music, i.e. that ‘accidental lyrics’ are subservient to ‘essential melodies’. They repeatedly made fun of fans seeking wisdom in pop culture and they dropped ‘fake clues’ throughout their work just to further confound misguided seekers. But of course, this is exactly the behavior you’d expect from someone concealing dangerous truths. Those of you who frequently fly Air Aletheia (thank you, BTW) know that we have zero regard for the opinions of creators . The job of the creator is to create, and creation is always a blend of inspiration and perspiration. It is someone else’s job to evaluate, explain, or analyze the work. As St. Paul pointed out, there are those who speak in tongues and those who interpret tongues. They are separate charisms. (1 Cor. 12: 10b) A full exploration of this question would be book length and might easily begin life as someone’s PhD thesis. Not mine! In today’s 1750 words, I can only hit a few highpoints, but a somewhat broader treatment can be found in the essays that make up the June 2025 issue of Aletheia Today Magazine . I will not waste my ‘precious’ words on the Beatles’ spiritual odyssey or on the intellectual roots of their wisdom. Instead I will attempt a deep dive into what Lennon called a “throw away song,” Glass Onion : I told you about strawberry fields You know the place where nothing is real Well, here's another place you can go Where everything flows Looking through the bent-backed tulips To see how the other half lives Looking through a glass onion . An onion, glass or otherwise, is a powerful metaphor for human nature. Onions don't have a core in the way that apples do. Instead, an onion is made up of concentric layers of ‘leaves’ wrapped around a small, tightly packed center that is just the youngest, most tightly wound, of those leaves. To paraphrase Stephen Hawking, et al., it’s leaves all the way down. Like onions, human beings have no core. We consist of concentric layers of ‘masks’, the faces we prepare to meet the faces that we meet (Eliot), carefully crafted to hide our true identities… from ourselves as well as from others. Fundamentally, each of us is neant (nothingness, Sartre , pure negation, the void. “Everything flows” is the signature meme of Heraclitus of Ephesus (in Modern Turkey), the pre-Socratic precursor of Process Philosophy (Whitehead) and an early bridge between Asian mysticism and European materialism. “Nothing is real” is an implied critique of British Empiricism, perhaps inspired by the Hindu concept of maya . I told you about the walrus and me, man You know that we're as close as can be, man Well, here's another clue for you all The walrus was Paul The song appears to mock the theory, popular at the time, that Paul McCartney had died and been replaced by a doppelganger. That myth was in part based on lyrics contained in an earlier song, I am the Walrus . In fact, however, the citation draws our attention to the older song’s mystical core: “I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.” This in turn reads as a reprise of Jesus’ Farewell Discourse as reported in John 13 – 16, especially “I am in my father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” (14: 20) Standing on the cast iron shore, yeah Lady Madonna trying to make ends meet, yeah Looking through a glass onion Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah (yeah, yeah) Looking through a glass onion The onion is a metaphor for the many elaborate disguises that conceal the existential singularity that is our ‘core’ (or anti-core). Most onions are opaque; they do the job nicely. But the Beatles are proposing something different: a glass onion that would allow us to see through each other’s masks right down to our shared core. Just imagine! You keep your masks and I keep mine, but they are transparent now and we can see through them right down to our common core. There is a strong parallel here with the New Testament Book of Revelation . John of Patmos, the purported author, is allowed to see eschatological reality (the existential void) but only by breaking in succession the 7 seals that conceal that reality from the world ( What did John See ) . The glassification of the Beatle’s onion is the ontological equivalent of the breaking of John’s seals. In both cases the existential core is made manifest. But in John’s case, the masks (seals) must be destroyed (broken). According to the kinder, gentler Beatles, those masks may be left in place; they need not block our view of ultimate reality. In the practice of meditation, beginners often complain of incessant distractions. The tendency is to resist them, like smashing John’s seals, but a better practice is just to let them be: don’t fixate on them, don’t feed them with your attention, just let them come…and watch them go. Glass Onion suggests we adopt a similarly tolerant attitude toward our masks. ‘Mother Mary, Lady Madonna’ plays an outsized role in Roman Catholic theology and in Beatle-ology. In an earlier post on this site Mother of God , following guidance from Pope Leo XIV, we spoke of Mary’s dual role as Jesus’ mother and the first fruits of his redemptive act. Who better to be first to see through the glass leaves? The Beatles give us a model for the sanctification of everyday life. Holiness does not demand that we live ascetic lives in isolated desert huts; saints live in Time Square too. On the other hand, there remains a cosmological role for the guru, the shaman, the holy man (sic) of God. Thomas Merton wrote that a few scattered contemplatives, praying continuously, hold the universe together. Drawing on ancient Sufi tradition, reprised by Shakespeare in King Lear , the Beatles refer to their shaman as a fool . I told you about the fool on the hill I tell you man, he's living there still. The role of the fool is the most transparent part of this song. He is in every respect a traditional Sufi master and his appearance near the end should remove any lingering doubt re the Beatles’ mystical intent in Glass Onion . I mean, how else could you possibly interpret this? “Day after day, alone on a hill The man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still But nobody wants to know him, they can see that he's just a fool And he never gives an answer But the fool on the hill sees the sun going down And the eyes in his head see the world spinning around …” I can’t imagine anything I’d rather have as my epitaph. Sadly, I don’t merit it. Well here's another place you can be Listen to me Fixing a hole in the ocean Trying to make a dovetail joint , yeah Looking through a glass onion. “Can God make a rock too heavy for him to lift?” Superlatives, like infinities, lead to logical contradictions. Nordic culture had a handle on this 500 to 1,000 years before its southerly neighbors (us). Tasked with fashioning an ‘unbreakable chain’ the Norse realized that they would need to use ‘exotic materials’, e.g. the sound of a cat’s footfall, a woman’s beard, a fish’s breath. Intuitively, the Norse understood that arithmetic needed to expand beyond the set of Real Numbers to include trans-finite and imaginary numbers in order to be useful in the construction of real world models. Bumper Sticker : “Real World – not Real Numbers!” Operations that are impossible according to conventional topology (above) might become possible once transparency (and permeability) is universal. It's a goal, It's a goal, It's a goal , It's a goal, It's a goal , It's a goal, It's a goal. The song’s final line recalls an enthusiastic radio announcer broadcasting a soccer match. A goal, of course, is a singularity: all play stops and resets. The fact that this meme repeats exactly 7 times may recall the 7 seals from Revelation (above). Rather than making fun of the pseudo-mystical, the climax of Glass Onion utterly trashes our secular culture. An archipelago of contemporary sporting events has taken the place of a lifelong quest for meaning and redemption. Isn’t progress grand! The cry of the sportscaster replaces the call to prayer and the sound of angels smashing the locks on the gates of knowledge. We have become a pitiful lot indeed. Of the Beatles’ many triumphs, none tops the successful hiding of the entire Sufi cannon in a string of pop songs and movies ( Yellow Submarine ). In 2200 CE, when the Intellectual History of the 20 th century is rewritten for the umpteenth time, now by colonists on Europa, the authors will marvel at how so much information could have been so successfully hidden from view in an age as sophisticated as ours. The credit does not go to the Beatles’ cryptologists. In many ways their codes are Hardy Boy transparent. But like any good magician (Magi = Sufi) they have distracted us…in this case with glorious melodies, ear catching poetry, psychedelic imagery, and their own deflecting, self-deprecatory commentary. But enough is enough! It is high time, in fact it’s long past time, to break the seals and enjoy the fantastic insights embedded in the Beatles’ corpus. Welcome! Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Do People Change? David Cowles Jun 1, 2026 “You are exactly the same today as you were at birth and as you will be at death…(but) you must change in order to remain the same.” A favorite topic among barroom philosophers begins with the question, “Does anyone ever really change?” Obviously, the question has ramifications: forgiveness vs. revenge, rehabilitation vs. incarceration, free will vs. fate. The beautiful thing about propositions put forward at the outset of barroom debates is that all sides of the argument are always right. There is a sense in which no one ever changes, a sense in which everyone is changing all the time, and a sense in which people (most but not necessarily all) change stochastically according to some sort of internal biological clock. My goal is to unravel these threads and, BTW, if I do so to your satisfaction, the next round’s on you, ok? No one ever changes : You are aware of the World, and you are aware of yourself being aware of the World. As a result, you experience the World stereoscopically, and the differance (Derrida) is consciousness. You are that consciousness . No matter how violently and relentlessly the world (including your body) changes around you, you do not change. You observe and qua observer, you are exactly the same today as you were at birth (or before) and as you will be at death (or after). You are Menelaus ( Odyssey ), unwavering and unchanging, holding on tight to the shape shifting Proteus. You are Stephen Dedalus ( Ulysses ) on Sandymount Strand, rationalizing the shifting forms assumed by primal matter, Aristotle’s pure potentia . Like the center point of a rotating sphere, you are at rest while everything literally spins around you. The World consists of qualia and it is in a state of constant flux. This is Parmenides’ Doxa (appearances), the realm of change. Here is where color, form, and affect reside. This is the World, Sartre’s en soi , but this is not you. Relative to en soi you are neant (nothingness, negation); you are pour soi . You are an avatar of Parmenides’ Aletheia (truth), the realm of permanence: “…what-is is ungenerated and imperishable…whole, single-limbed, steadfast, and complete; nor was it once, nor will it be, since it is, now, all together, one, continuous…Thus coming-to-be is extinguished and perishing not to be heard of.” Being in the realm of Aletheia , you are simple, you have no parts, you have no qualities, and, of course, you undergo no change. Everyone changes continuously : You template the World, you reflect the World, and the World is constantly in a state of flux ( Doxa , above). Therefore, you must constantly change to adapt to the ceaseless change around you. In homage to the great Johnnie Cochrane, “If it is not new, it is not you!” This change is neither arbitrary nor voluntary; it is homeostatic, it is necessary for survival. You seek stability and so you must continually adjust to changes around you. You must change if you are to remain the same. Most people change stochastically : This is where our model represents an advance over Parmenides and Sartre and pretty much anyone in between. To understand this third option, we need to visit our cousin, the butterfly . A butterfly begins life as a caterpillar. Once the caterpillar has grown sufficiently, it forms a protective casing around itself called a chrysalis where the caterpillar's body proceeds to dissolve into a biological soup. The interior of the chrysalis becomes a cellular slurry, the raw material for an entirely fresh organism with new structures such as wings, antennae, compound eyes, etc. Imagine a piece of unassembled DIY furniture from IKEA (it’s easy if you try) with two schematics directing its assembly – two, because the pieces in this kit can be assembled in 2 totally different ways resulting in two entirely different pieces of furniture. It’s the ultimate application of Transformers technology. At an appropriate time, our personalities dissolve into a soup, just like a caterpillar’s DNA, and then reassemble according to an entirely different schematic, just like a butterfly. Like butterflies, you retain pre-metamorphic memories but otherwise, you are an entirely new entity. Most people experience metamorphosis 3 times in life, once at the onset of puberty (11 – 13), again upon the full realization of adulthood (21 – 30), and one last time at the beginning of ‘seniority’ (55 – 80). Parents often reflect that living with their teenaged offspring is like living with strangers in their house; been there…on both sides of that see-saw! The adults think they are speaking metaphorically but in fact, their observation is true, literally. On the other hand, many retirees succeed in so reinventing themselves that they wonder how they ever found the time, energy, or frankly the ‘stomach’ to work for 40+ years. It is said that there are no second acts in America; on the contrary, every life has a second act, or at least the opportunity for one, as well as a prologue. Our lives seem to follow Homer’s trajectory ( Odyssey ). Our ‘minority’ follows the structure of the Telemachia and serves as the Prologue in our life’s drama. At first, Telemachus is powerless against his mother’s suitors; later, with the help of a mentor, he begins to resist and develops a strategy to overthrow the interlopers. At the end (Act II), Odysseus is reunited with his home, Ithaca, but on entirely new terms. This is not so surprising! Both Homer ( Odyssey ) and Joyce ( Ulysses ) intended to tell ‘the story of everyone’ through their respective epics. And they did! We are all Dedalus, we are all Bloom, we are all Telemachus, we are all Odysseus. Our lives unfold in three acts: a Prologue, then Act I Proper (our adult life), followed by a usually much shorter Act II (our seniority). So no matter what side you took in this barroom brawl, you have the satisfaction of knowing you were right…and I have the satisfaction of a quaffing a cold one on you. Slainte! Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Can You Make a Difference? David Cowles May 29, 2026 “You are nothing other than self-awareness…the organic unity of your constituent cells experiencing itself…” Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, concluded from his experience that humanity’s deepest hunger is for meaning. We desperately want to make a difference, to leave an indelible footprint in eternal sands. There’s a little Ozymandias in all of us: “Look upon my works ye mighty and despair.” Unfortunately, the world we live in does not easily accommodate these aspirations. To grasp the extent of the disconnect, we need to step back and understand who we are in context. We need to shed any illusions about the world and our place in it. We are not ‘little less than angels’… we are ‘little more than bacteria’. In fact, we are ‘ nothing more than bacteria’… and we may even be a little less ! U R a meta-organism emerging out of the cooperating behavior of 30 trillion independent unicellular organisms (cells), each containing the primordial DNA code characteristic of all terrestrial life along with a coded IKEA instruction manual (in Swedish) for the assembly of those cells into the meta-organism we lovingly know as you . Ain’t miniaturization grand! Each of these 30 trillion cells is directly descended from the single cell that housed the primordial DNA molecule, a clone of which is now present in every organism on Planet Earth. But you are not even that : you are an epiphenomenal derivative of those cells! A 2 nd order epiphenomenon of cells that are themselves epiphenomena of DNA. *** Your cells thrive in their self-created community (your body)…until they don’t. The meta-organism has remarkable powers of self-censorship and auto-repair but once dysfunction reaches a certain level, these homeostatic forces are overwhelmed and their meta-organic ecosystem collapses. For you, being is derivative of doing . Your being is agency. I act therefore I am. And once I no longer interact holistically with my symbiotic environment, I cease to be. However, not all of my cells die as a result; some cells can live outside the body, under proper conditions, for undetermined lengths of time. There is even evidence that certain groups of cells (tissues) respond to the meta-organic catastrophe by attempting to reorganize into novel, viable structures. Bottom line : you are even more dependent on your constituent cells than they are on you. *** We see reality through an extremely powerful lens. What is proximate to us in spacetime seems huge compared to what is even slightly more distant. Given this distortion, it is almost impossible to grasp the magnitude of the universe and our own relative minuteness. Knowing that there are 25 orders of magnitude separating me from my cosmos doesn’t help. You too? Then try this instead: Right now I am sitting at my desk typing, a yoga pose I maintain for 10 hours a day. How holy! My spouse and my PCP both tell me I must move more. I borrow a meme from Woody Allen ( Annie Hall ) and tell them that I’m already moving faster than they can even imagine. I am spinning around on the Earth’s access, I am revolving around the Sun, I am moving with my Solar System through my galaxy and with that galaxy ‘across the universe’ (Beatles). All in, I travel 500 miles every second (that’s almost 2,000,000 miles/hour), not counting my occasional trips to a store. And I’m not even factoring in the rate of cosmic expansion. So it’s Boston to LA in 6 seconds . Faster than the Concorde! But to me it feels like standing still. Heck, I’m out of breath if I have to catch a bus. But like Leopold Bloom, “I have traveled”… more than a trillion miles so far and I’m still effortlessly racking up frequent flier points. *** Moving through spacetime at that speed, can I still make a difference? Maybe. Heck, if a butterfly in Borneo can trigger a tornado in Chicago, there’s hope for me. But will the universe cooperate? The cosmos came to be ex nihilo , suddenly and without explanation, and it will cease to be, albeit more gradually. So if I do leave a permanent mark, I leave it on a temporary world. I am quite literally rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic . Does that constitute ‘making a difference’? Imagine the Magna Carta written with disappearing ink! Yet I cling to the illusion that events, local in space and in time, have universal and eternal implications. Some would call this ‘magical thinking’ but I continue to believe that I can leave the world a better place, that I can make a difference. But I can’t! And neither can you. Of course the things that we do have consequences. In fact, any act, however ill-defined or trivial it may be, permanently affects every quantum of spacetime. But we are trying to make a permanent mark and spacetime is a transitory medium. Worse, your acts do have consequences, albeit temporary ones, but you have absolutely no idea what those consequences are. However real, consequences cannot be controlled, directed, predicted, or even measured. We fly, but we fly blind! The truth is, everything that happens is a ‘consequence’ of everything that went before it and an ‘anticipation’ of everything that is to come. The famous butterfly triggered a tornado, but it didn’t mean to, and it doesn’t even know that it happened. In fact, once the butterfly flapped, every nook and cranny of the universe was irreversibly altered. So, did the butterfly leave a mark, and if so, is that sort of mark enough to satisfy our hunger for significance? You struggle to see even a single act from inception through to completion; then once complete, your act takes on a life of its own. It will be what it will be; it will serve as raw material for other acts with other, often irrelevant or even contrary, aims. *** The search for meaning (or significance) is more complicated than it appears at first glance. For ‘meaning’ to occur, there has to be something that means and something that is meant. And unless we’re content to chase our tails, what is meant must ‘transcend’ what means , i.e. it must be of a different ontological order. You can say that ‘box’ means ‘container’ et al. but eventually you will have to make reference to something meta-verbal, an abstract three dimensional shape called a ‘cube’ or a physical conveyance for storing and/or shipping concrete items. Cube and Conveyance are of different ontological orders than Box. The concrete object (box) is different in kind from its form (Platonic), its function (tool), or its verbal representation (word). *** Unless you are a psychopath, the difference you wish to make is not random (change for change’s sake); it reveals some notion of ‘value’, however vaguely conceived. I cannot prefer A over B unless A differs from B in a way that, for me at least, is positive. Sidebar : Even Anarchists demonstrate a concept of Good through their actions. They destroy because they believe that society, once returned to its pre-industrial state of nature, will spontaneously redevelop in ways that are likely to improve on the status quo . Anarchism is often confused with Nihilism: it’s the opposite! The Anarchist’s faith is absolute: she believes that Good is a hard-wired feature of Nature. She is less atheist than pantheist. That positive difference you’re trying to make is the beginning of a concept of Good. What we call a ‘value’ is the Good in context. Beauty, for example, is the Good in a certain context; likewise Truth and Justice. They are denotatively synonymous, connotatively distinct. What is the nature of this Good ? Is it objectively real and normative or subjective, imagined and contingent? If ‘Good’ just means ‘pleasing to me’, then it has nothing to do with reality and is merely an expression of my preferences. So we must ask: ( 1) Is anything, anywhere, ever good ? (2) If so, does ‘good’ refer to anything other than personal preference? (3) If so, what is the source of this Good and what gives it its validity? If you hold that Good is just a matter of subjective preference with no normative significance, then good on you; enjoy life! But if you cling to the notion that Good is objective and prescriptive, then it is incumbent on you, I believe, to explain how it is objective and why it is prescriptive. Traditionally, ‘objectivists’ have relied on the God Hypothesis : Either Good is good because an omnipotent, omniscient, and omni-benevolent being says it’s ‘good’… or there exists a transcendent being whose essence is Good per se . But ‘God’ is not a popular concept these days. That said, popularity does not always accompany actuality. *** These analyses place our very existence in question. We need Descartes’ Cogito just to reclaim some confidence in our own actuality. Beyond the homeostatic forces that keep the meta-organism close to equilibrium, ‘you’ are nothing ( neant ), nothing other than self-awareness, how you experience the organic unity of your constituent cells…or better, how the organic unity of your constituent cells experiences itself. That self-conscious reflexivity is something you share with every other living entity in the universe. You share it with terrestrial bacteria and with their Martain counterparts; you share it with Space Aliens; you may even share it with descendants of HAL 9000. You are they in every meaningful way. We need to be clear here: the consciousness that makes ‘you’ you is not merely the same as the consciousness that makes ‘that bacterium’ that bacterium - it is that consciousness! Consciousness has no inherent content, no qualia ; it cannot be subdivided, it is impervious to change. It is pure process; it is recursion per se . ‘Consciousness’ has no plural. It exists once and for all, equally and identically, in every living organism. But you don’t know that! You only experience consciousness as it manifests on one of its nodes (the node we call ‘you’). Presumably, this manifestation also occurs at every other node, but, under normal circumstances at least, you have no access to such trans-nodal experience: you don’t read ‘other minds’. *** If you were born sometime in the past 100 years, you’ll find this conclusion extremely unsettling. We have demonstrated conclusively that our hunger for meaning can never be satisfied in a flat, self-contained universe, i.e. a universe that lacks a transcendent dimension. The standard model of Universe, spacetime bounded by a beginning and an end, does not include such transcendence. “There exists nothing which could judge, measure, compare, condemn our being, for that would be to judge, measure, compare, condemn the whole… But nothing exists apart from the whole!” ( Nietzsche We must give up our notion that being has meaning, that actions have significance beyond themselves, that values have any objective claim on our conduct, that ‘life is worth living’ (Sheen)… unless we are willing to give up our atheism and accept the God Hypothesis (above), distasteful as that may be to our post-Enlightenment mindset. This stark conclusion elevates two sentences to the apex of Western theology. The first is at least 2500 years old and comes from the Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy : “I set before you life and death, therefore choose life.” (30: 19) The second is credited to St. Dallan (a Christian Irish poet of the early Middle Ages): “Naught is all else to me save that Thou (God) art.” Turns out, metaphysics is not as complicated as we thought. We either embrace the idea that something (call it ‘God’ or ‘Higher Power’) transcends our spatiotemporal bubble and gives meaning to events within it… or we accept that being is accidental and ephemeral, that our lives are meaningless and without significance, that our pain is real and all hope illusory. On the flip side, if there is something that gives life meaning and significance, it is only reasonable that we make it the focus of our lives, our ‘ultimate concern’ (Paul Tillich). Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! 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< Back Magnifica Humanitas David Cowles May 27, 2026 “Pope Leo has squandered an incredible opportunity... to assume a leadership role in shaping a new Ethic of Abundance.” Although I am not a fan of the Chicago White Sox (wrong color hose), I greeted the election of Pope Leo with enthusiasm, especially when he chose the name ‘Leo’ in honor of Leo XIII, one of my intellectual heroes. 150 years ago, Leo cut through the Capitalist vs. Communist rhetoric of his day and put forward an alternative, and compelling, vision of a good society. Importantly, the elder Leo did not fixate on the form of a government but on its actual policies. So I was severely disappointed by Leo XIV’s first Encyclical ( Magnifica Humanitas , 5/15/2026). The text, not yet widely available in print, demands a much more detailed response, but please consider this as a first pass: Technology should not be considered, in itself, as a force antagonistic to humanity… Wow! That Leo feels a need to make such a statement near the beginning of his Encyclical is chilling. Technology is a charism, just like preaching, teaching, and speaking in tongues (1 Cor. 12). Among extant terrestrial life forms, this behavior is almost exclusively the franchise of homo sapiens . Other species adapt to environmental change better than we do but we do a much ‘better’ job of modifying that environment. Technology is near the core of what it means to be human. Today, however, we find ourselves facing a new situation. The power and prevalence of emerging technologies are interwoven into the fabric of daily life, shaping decision-making processes and deeply affecting the collective imagination. Every technology is ‘interwoven into the fabric of daily life’… That’s how technology works! That’s what it is! Respectfully, Leo needs to brush up on his Marx, Ellul, McLuhan, Buckminster Fuller, et al. New technologies open up a horizon extending in directions that are imaginable but not yet fully predictable. This complicates the assessment of their potential impact and the long-term effects they may have on both the dignity of individuals and the common good . Leo is fixated on the concepts of human dignity and common good; both are deeply problematic. Re human dignity, we are born naked, helpless, and covered in mucus. We spend the next 18+ years trying to survive the abuse, neglect, miseducation, and regimentation known as a ‘happy childhood’; we follow that with 40+ years of wage slavery known as a ‘career’. Then we grow old, get sick, regress, and die. Some dignity! I’m sorely tempted to leave things here (so that I can enter the academy of 20 th century French intellectuals…and I’m not even French, mes amis )… but I can’t. There is another side of the story: each of us is also the image and likeness of ‘God’, you know, that omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent fellow that we all once believed in. According to Sartre (fellow 20 th century French intellectual), God is the being whose essence (qualities) precedes his existence. And according to Aquinas (not French) et al., that essence is Good; Good manifests in our world as Beauty, Truth, and Justice. So perhaps we do enjoy some dignity after all. One of the ‘avatars’ of this God we emulate is Creator . So we create. Our creative function ( techne ) confers dignity as do our artistic, intellectual ( gnosis ), and legislative ( mishpat ) functions. Lastly, nothing is ever fully predictable, especially potential impacts and long-term effects. That’s why they’re called ‘potential’ and ‘long term’; otherwise they’d be called ‘actual’ and ‘immediate’. In the past, it was largely up to the State to guide and direct innovation. Really, in the entire history of the world, has any State ever really ‘guided and directed innovation’ - though not for lack of trying (USSR et al.)? The Church values democracy insofar as it guarantees the effective participation of citizens, enables them to elect and peacefully replace their leaders and prevents power from being monopolized by small elite groups motivated by particular or ideological interests. Agreed. The church correctly values these things…though they have never existed. “I dream of things that never were and ask ‘Why not?’” (Bobby Kennedy) Human rights are inviolable, since they are “inherent in the human person and in human dignity.” Consequently, they are universal and inalienable. Among the numerous implications of the common good, immediate significance is taken on by the principle of the universal destination of goods . First of all, this principle reminds us that the earth’s goods — soil, water, air and natural resources — are given by God to the entire human family to sustain the lives of all, and that every person has an inherent right to the use of such goods, both now and in the future. Leo’s notion of common good seems to imply equal access and therefore socialism, which Leo XIII abhorred and which subsequent Church teaching seems to condemn. Certainly there is a right to private property, which has its own specific meaning and purpose, yet it is always subordinate to the universal destination of goods. According to John Paul II , this subordination is the golden rule of social conduct and the “first principle of the whole ethical and social order.” Between Robber Baron Capitalism and Democratic Socialism, there is a vast middle ground. As far back as the 1960’s John Rawls proposed a theory of a just society that was based on three principles: (1) universal civil liberties, (2) a safety net guaranteed to deliver cash and benefits equivalent to a living wage, and (3) otherwise, unrestrained economic activity. No homelessness, no food insecurity, unlimited opportunity. In the Church’s tradition, property has been viewed as a means of protecting and managing goods so that they may better serve the common good. The Church has traditionally valued private property as a way of protecting that property from the rapacious appetite of the State so that it may be deployed by individuals (owners) in ways that ultimately contribute to the common good. Starting with Leo XIII and the beginnings of modern social teaching, the Church has insisted that neither the individual nor the family should be subsumed by the State, but should be allowed to act freely, as far as possible, without harming the common good… The Church’s social teaching emphasizes that solidarity is both a principle and a virtue. As a principle, it expresses the objective order of relationships among individuals, groups and peoples, pointing to an awareness of interdependence whereby the good of each person depends on the good of others. Amen to that! As with every major technological shift, AI tends to amplify the power of those who already possess economic resources, expertise and access to data. Perhaps, but conversely AI, alongside personal computerization and social media, radically democratizes access to data (information) and communication media and places exponentially enhanced agentic power in the hands of the individual. Will you consider me mean spirited if I point out that the Church’s own track record in this area is ‘checkered’? It was not that long ago that the Church actively discouraged laity from reading the Bible. Then Martin Luther dragged the Church kicking and screaming into the 16 th century; 500 years on, will it be Sam Altman who drags the Church into the 21 st ? The search for truth is an essential element of democracy , which is itself a means of contributing to the common good…Democracy does not consist of rules and procedures alone, but above all of a solid concordance with the facts and a genuine commitment to the good of individuals and society as a whole . At its theoretical best, Democracy is a process by which ‘the people’ determine those facts and then, based on those facts, formulate social (political and economic) policy. Pope Leo puts the cart before the horse. He assumes that the result of fact finding and deliberation will always be ‘a genuine commitment to the good of individuals and society as a whole’. Alas, the history of electoral democracy does not support Leo’s optimism. Above all, however, the Magisterium has recognized in work “the essential key” to understanding the entire social question, since it is through their work that individuals develop many dimensions of their existence. Let’s conduct a survey: how many people feel that their work has helped them ‘develop many dimensions of their existence’ (whatever that means)? Work is not simply an instrument; it expresses and enhances the dignity of our lives. It is a requirement of the human condition , a normal path toward maturity, development and personal fulfilment. Ah, a hidden variable is revealed! According to Genesis , one of humanity’s punishments for Adam’s transgression was the need to live by the sweat of one’s brow. Were the necessity of work to be overcome, would we be undermining scripture? While AI promises to boost productivity by taking over mundane tasks, it frequently forces workers to adapt to the speed and demands of machines (and)… relegate(s) them to rigid and repetitive tasks. Leo has his Revolutions mixed up. It was the Industrial Revolution (19 th century) that subordinated workers to their machines and condemned them to mind numbing tasks. It is the AI Revolution (21 st century) that will free workers from this drudgery. The need to keep up with the pace of technology can erode workers’ sense of agency and stifle the innovative abilities they are expected to bring to their work. Au contraire , AI boosts workers’ agentic powers and rewards, often handsomely, innovative thinking…”because it is so rare.” ( Mutiny on the Bounty ) Precisely in order to avoid this drift, it is necessary to design systems that are centered on the human person and not solely on performance. What could be less dignifying and more dehumanizing that the suggestion that peak performance is incompatible with the human person. Tell that to Bach, or Van Gogh, or James Joyce. Thank God, they didn’t get the memo! It is certainly desirable for technology to relieve humans of arduous, repetitive or dangerous tasks… Yet, the protection of employment opportunities and the irreplaceable role of the individual must remain the general rule. So, relieving ‘humans of arduous, repetitive or dangerous tasks’ is ‘certainly desirable’…but let’s not do it? Economic freedom is not absolute; it must always be measured against the common good and the dignity of every person. Economic freedom is a cornerstone of human dignity and indispensable to the aggressive pursuit of the common good. A just society requires a vigilant State. This is grotesquely anti-scriptural. The Book of Judges (justice makers) details a glorious 250 year period in Israel’s history: “In those days, Israel had no king, everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” (21: 25, et al.) Jesus, handed a Roman coin, did not issue a white paper proposing monetary reform; he just gave it back. (Mt. 22: 21) In continuity with the tradition inaugurated by Leo XIII , the Church renews her firm condemnation of all forms of slavery, trafficking and the commodification of persons. All forms of slavery except, apparently, Wage Slavery. And what is ‘labor’ (vs. work) other than the commodification of the person? That’s precisely what labor is…’value added’! But worst of all, Pope Leo has squandered what an incredible opportunity…for society and for the Church. A new day is dawning, with or without Pope Leo’s blessing, and it begs for inspiration and guidance; both are utterly lacking in Magnifica Humanitas . As for the Church, this was an opportunity to assume a leadership role in shaping a new ‘ethic of abundance’ : How to ensure that newly created wealth works to improve the human condition generally. Instead, Leo responds with the worn out ‘ethic of scarcity’ – quelle domage ! Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Can Design Help Form Faith? Giosafatte Ingrassia May 17, 2026 “The best Christian design does not ask to be admired. Its purpose is not only to be seen. Its deeper purpose is to point. It asks to be followed beyond itself.” I grew up in Calabria, in the south of Italy, where visible signs of faith were part of ordinary life. In our home there was Padre Pio on the wall, statues of Jesus and Our Lady, and the kind of religious images you do not really question as a child because they are simply there. At school, there was a crucifix. In my father’s car, there is still a small crucifix hanging beneath the rear-view mirror. Only later did I begin to realise that these things were not just decoration. They were reminders. Quiet ones, maybe, but reminders all the same. I moved to Rome as a teenager, the picture became more complicated. Rome is full of churches, sacred art, and Christian history, yet many people my age seemed more secular than those I had known in smaller towns in the south. Then, when I moved to London at twenty, the contrast became sharper again. Christian signs felt less assumed, less woven into public life. I did not have the language for it then, but Durkheim’s old distinction between the sacred and the profane later gave words to something I had already felt: the sacred can be present and still be ignored, or absent enough that its smallest sign begins to matter. Christian tradition has always understood that what we see can shape what we remember. Paintings, statues, icons, stained glass, rosaries, medals, church bells, and the rosoni, the great rose windows in old churches, were never meant to be mere decoration. They taught, reminded, and directed attention. They surrounded people with signs of the good, the true, and the beautiful. Beauty does not replace faith. But it can make the soul more ready to receive meaning. A church window, a crucifix, or a sacred image does not force belief. It simply asks us to pause. Studying psychology has made me less naive about attention. The modern world knows very well how trainable it is. Screens, adverts, notifications, billboards, and algorithms are constantly competing for our eyes. They do not simply show us things. They try to make us desire, compare, click, buy, and return. That is why visible signs of faith deserve to be taken seriously, even when they appear in ordinary forms: a mug, a phone case, a print, a shirt, or a tote bag. If the modern world is already using design to form our desires, Christians should not be embarrassed to ask whether design can also help form attention toward God. Of course, this can go wrong. Christian imagery can become shallow. It can turn faith into a vibe, a slogan, a costume, or just another consumer identity. A cross can be worn without being carried. A verse can be printed without being lived. That does not mean humour or modern Christian design should be dismissed. There is room for humour within reverence. Many of us have experienced enough divine irony in our own lives to know that faith is not humourless. But humour has to point back toward truth, not away from it. The difference is purpose. A Bible verse, a saint image, a crucifix, or a Christian phrase becomes meaningful when it serves remembrance, prayer, courage, truth, hope, or witness. The problem is not that faith becomes visible. The problem is when visibility becomes the whole point. Christian design should not make holiness fashionable; it should make forgetfulness harder. There is a line in ‘Excalibur’ where Merlin says that one of the curses of men is that they forget. The line has stayed with me because forgetfulness is not only a human weakness. It is a spiritual danger. We forget what is true, what has been given, what has been sacrificed, and who we are called to become. Christian life depends on remembrance. “Do this in memory of me” is not a sentimental phrase. It is at the heart of worship. Memory matters because love weakens when it forgets. Design cannot carry the whole weight of faith, but it can carry a reminder. A rosary, a crucifix, a verse on a mug, or a Christian image on a wall can interrupt the day’s ordinary drift. A gift with Christian meaning can do something similar. It may sit quietly on a desk, hang by a door, or be worn in public, but its purpose is not only to be seen. Its deeper purpose is to point. Sometimes a visible sign of faith does what awkward words cannot: it begins a conversation. It can cross the small distances that often keep people apart: accent, background, nationality, class, appearance. Beneath those differences is a shared human dignity, and for Christians, a soul made for God. A Christian object is at its best when it points beyond itself. It is not precious because it is religious merchandise, but because it may invite someone to remember Christ, to pray, to return, or to live differently. This question has become more personal for me as I approach confirmation. I am not thinking about design only as aesthetics, but as part of a larger desire to seek the Kingdom, grow closer to God, and deepen my relationship with Christ. Christian by Grace is only a small means toward that end. Its purpose is not to make faith look fashionable, but to help make faith visible in ordinary life. If even one design became the occasion for someone to remember Christ, pray, return, or ask a deeper question, that would be enough. So, can design help form faith? Not by itself. Not automatically. But it can help form attention, memory, witness, and return. Faith does not need to be loud, but it should not be invisible. The best Christian design does not ask to be admired. It asks to be followed beyond itself. Giosafatte’s bio: Giosafatte Ingrassia is a London-based psychology graduate originally from Calabria in southern Italy. He is the creator of Christian by Grace ( Hot Link to https://christianbygrace.com ) a Christian visual design project built around making faith visible in daily life through Scripture, sacred symbolism, humour, devotional art, pilgrimage, and everyday reminders. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back JD Salinger vs Wally Shawn David Cowles May 18, 2026 “Rather than reject Salinger’s derogatory depiction, Shawn leans into it… He dismisses the Gregory/Salinger aesthetic and lifestyle as fantastic, illusory, arbitrary and magical.” Any mildly competent Intellectual History of the US post WW II would have to recognize the contributions of J.D. Salinger (JD) and Wallace Shawn (Wally). (Although we’ve never met, I feel as though I grew up, culturally, alongside Mr. Shawn so referring to him as ‘Wally’ does not seem irreverent.) JD, of Catcher in the Rye fame, is known for his eccentricity, his physical isolation, and his meagre, if cherished, literary output. Wally, on the other hand, seems to have two fingers in every cultural pie. Actor, director, author, critic, and TV celebrity, Wallace Shawn is an iconic member of the post-War literary scene. Respecting your time, dear reader, I will mention just a few of Shawn’s many credits: My Dinner with Andre , Vanya on 42 nd Street , The Princess Bride , voice roles in Toy Story and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , and of course, the olive in every martini, Young Sheldon . He’s collaborated with everyone from Woody Allen (6 films) to Louie Malle ( Atlantic City ), Bill Cosby ( The Cosby Show ), and Noam Chomsky. Nor did the apple fall far from the tree. For several decades, Wally’s father, William Shawn, edited America’s literary magazine of record, The New Yorker . During that period the elder Shawn was close friends with Salinger and they dined regularly at the Algonquin. JD was not yet 25 when Wally was born. It is likely that he followed his maturation closely and was no doubt aware of his emergence as a cultural icon in his own right. How JD felt about that, however, is unknown, at least by this commentator. In 1961, in the third of his four published works, Franny and Zooey , Salinger gives Wally a cameo role that I don’t think was meant to be flattering. JD presents Wally as unmemorable, as someone who looks, talks, dresses and acts like everybody else. He has the sort of face that you keep seeing, but not seeing, in every crowd. Salinger presents Wally as a charmer and a gossip, one who drops a name only to disparage its nominee. “It’s not just Wally…it’s everybody. I mean everything everybody does is so…tiny and meaningless,” says Franny Glass, JD’s anti-hero. According to Franny, Wallace Shawn is a poster boy for banality; but worst of all, Wally is introduced to us, and to Franny, as a friend of Lane, Franny’s foil, a shallow, entitled, prep-school frat boy living a life utterly devoid of authenticity. 20 years later (1981), almost to the day, the world got Wallace Shawn’s reply in the form of a full length feature film, My Dinner with Andre (Louie Malle, director). As you know, the film consists almost entirely of conversation over dinner between Wally and fellow director, Andre Gregory. Trust me, you’ll be on the edge of your seat for the full 110 minutes. There is no direct connection between Gregory and Salinger, except for a shared eccentricity that borders on the anti-social and a total disdain for the ordinary and the everyday. However, there are certainly notes of similarity between Salinger’s version of Wally and Malle’s kinder, gentler treatment. That said, Wally’s apparent identity across 2 decades begs us to seek a parallel identity between his interlocutors, Salinger and Gregory. In a style fully suggestive of Salinger, Gregory savages the mundane. For an hour and a half, Gregory holds court, only briefly interrupted by the baffled Shawn and their slightly annoyed waiter. But reminiscent of Molly in Ulysses , Wally gets the last word with a 10 minute virtual soliloquy that shreds the Gregory/Salinger aesthetic: “I’m trying to earn a living. I’m trying to pay my rent and my bills… I have a list of errands and responsibilities that I keep in a notebook, and I enjoy going through my list and carrying out the responsibilities and doing the errands and then crossing them off my list… I don’t feel the need for anything more than this… A delicious cup of coffee and a piece of coffee cake, why is it necessary to have more than this or to even think about having more than this? “You seem constantly to be finding a significance in these things that to me are just facts…that things in the universe are there for a purpose, to give us messages. Whereas I believe that things in the universe are just there. They don’t mean anything.” Here, Wally is aligning himself with such luminaries as Epicurus, Voltaire (“tend your own garden”) and Solomon (traditional author of Ecclesiastes ): “I know that there is nothing good for man (sic) except to be happy and live the best life he can while he is alive. Moreover, that a man should eat and drink and enjoy himself in return for all his labors is a gift of God… “Go to it then, eat your food and enjoy it, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart; for already God has accepted what you have done… Whatever task lies to your hand, do it with all your might.” Rather than reject Salinger’s derogatory depiction, Shawn leans into it. He turns vice into virtue and in the process he dismisses the Gregory/Salinger aesthetic and lifestyle as fantastic, illusory, arbitrary and magical. Truth to tell, there is much to admire in the works of Salinger and Gregory… but no more than in the work of Wallace Shawn. Ecclesiastes can be read as a commentary on Deuteronomy : “I set before you life and death…” becomes “I set before you the fantastic (nihilism) and the mundane (quietism); therefore choose…” What world do you live in, dear reader? ‘Wally World’ (Solomon & Shawn) or its ‘Anti-World’ (Salinger and Gregory)? Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Jesus & the Prime Directive David Cowles May 19, 2026 “Are we growing into a civilization governed by the Prime Directive? Or are we finally heeding Jesus’ call to keep off the grass?” “The Prime Directive, or Starfleet General Order 1, is the foundational, non-interference principle of the Star Trek United Federation of Planets. It prohibits personnel from influencing or intervening in the natural, cultural, and technological development of alien civilizations…” (Wikipedia) Wisdom is universal and eternal; but expressions of that Wisdom vary by culture and era and, who knows, perhaps by species, chemistry, planet or galaxy as well. In that light, Starfleet General Order 1 makes a useful contribution. But we should not lose sight of the fact that it restates an expression of Wisdom at least two millennia old: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us…” ( Lord’s Prayer ) If it is not immediately obvious why these two statements are semantically equivalent, you may be forgiven – forgiven because these two pearls connect only through the mediation of an obscure 6 th century BCE Greek philosopher (Anaximander) and his less obscure 20 th century avatar (Heidegger). Intrigued? Homo Sapiens did not evolve in isolation. We exist only in the context of community and community comes about only when you and I grant each other ‘reck’ (i.e. recognition, deference). We grant reck when we sublimate our own interests to those of another. I ‘make space’ for you; and when you, simultaneously and without any expectation of reciprocity, make space for me, then voila , we have community ! The unobvious opposite of ‘reck’ is ‘trespass’. Instead of making room for you to emerge and grow, I impinge upon you, stunt your growth, expropriate your property and perhaps cut short your stay or even abort your arrival. In short, I ‘trespass against’ you. We ask God to overlook, to overcome, to forgive all our trespasses, i.e. all the ‘days and ways’ we use to limit others’ being, growth, or optimization (“be all that you can be”). “As we forgive those who trespass against us.” Forgiving others’ trespasses is granting them reck, granting and forgiving being two sides of the same coin. “Whatever you bind on earth (in time) will be bound in heaven (eternally) and whatever you lose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matt. 18: 18) God operates in the world through the world. Granting reck and forgiving trespasses, we become co-creators and co-redeemers with God. When we forgive, we operate in loco Dei . We realize God’s eschatological objective in a concrete context. What happens in spacetime ‘happens’ (potentially at least) in eternity: “On Earth as it is in Heaven.” Forgiveness of others is Step One in the process of universal reconciliation and redemption. We’ve come a long way since Anaximander, 2500 years to be exact, but our progress has not been entirely fortuitous. The local (in space & time) successes of our engineers and our generals have convinced us that qualia (values) are best realized when imposed externally, not cultivated internally or agreed mutually. We have built an entire language around this ethic. Sentences are our ‘quanta of meaning’ and in modern Indo-European (IE) languages, most sentences connect a subject with an object through the mediation of an active (or passive) voiced verb. In the raging ‘60s, Marshall McLuchan famously said that ‘the medium is the message’. Extending that insight, we can say that the structure of language (medium) determines what is communicated (message) through that language. Example : A baseball bat and ball are lying together on the ground. We immediately imagine someone using the bat to hit the ball which we would express as “the bat hit the ball” (subject-verb-object) or “John hit the ball with the bat”. We do not consider that the two artifacts might have an entirely different relationship: Perhaps we are playing a darts-like game where the object is to throw the ball from a distance to hit the bat. Or the object of the game is to balance the ball on the knob of the bat for as long as possible or to use the bat as a chute, seeing how far you can roll the ball at a 45° angle before the ball hits the ground. Inquisitive? Use the bat as a tool to crack open the ball so you can explore its rubbery core and the clump of elastic string tightly wound around it. Hostile? Attach the ball to the end of the bat and use it as a mace. Cheeky? Place the objects in the royal nursery and watch them instantly transubstantiate into orb-and-scepter. Pragmatic? They form a clock ‘hand’ worthy of Big Ben…or a measuring rod for surveyors. Add a swivel and you have ‘spoke and rim’ construction. When writing a message on a deserted beach for a passing plane to read, use our combo to create the letter ‘i’ or better yet, as the exclamation mark ‘!’ at the end of “Help!” But to fully understand the semantic range of a ‘sphere and cylinder’, hand the ball and bat (taking all necessary precautions of course) to a 3 year old; she will show you things you can do with them that neither you nor I could possibly imagine. Civilization evolves organically and holistically. Our need for tools and weapons prompts us to scan the environment for suitable objects. We name those objects, we transform them, and we create a language around their role in hunting, herding and construction. Language, in turn, draws our attention to additional objects that might thrive in our technosphere. Like the set of a Disney movie, our ho-hum world is instantly transformed into a wonderland of obstacles and tools, somehow magically suited to our projects; our language itself is one such talisman. The traditional values of Beauty, Truth and Justice are reinterpreted in context as Efficiency, Efficacy and Economy. We have embedded this ethic in our language; we have divided the world into intentional actors (subjects), passive ‘beneficiaries’ (objects) and their transformations (verbs). *** It doesn’t have to be like this…and it isn’t. Ancient IE languages and some modern non-IE languages have a much richer and more deeply expressive syntax. Ancient Greek and Old Norse, for example, had a dominant Middle Voice that interprets events as products of mutuality rather than agency. In such a grammar, nouns are co-subjects and co-objects, verbs are recursive, and process is reciprocating. A variety of non-IE languages, some perhaps with Neolithic roots (e.g. modern Basque), solve the problem of Active Voice bias by different means. For example, Basque uses ergative-absolutive alignment (rather than the nominative-accusative system universal in IE languages). In ergative grammar, the subject of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb both take the absolutive case, which has no suffix — it's the bare form of the word, the root. The implication is that this is the primordial case: being, not doing. The subject of a transitive verb (doing) takes a different case entirely — the ergative, marked with the suffix -k . Ergativity is found in other languages worldwide (Chechen, Tibetan, many Australian languages, some Mayan languages) but is completely absent from the IE family. Another grammatical feature characteristic of Basque and, perhaps, certain Neolithic languages, is polypersonality - a single verb form simultaneously encodes the person and number of the subject, the direct object, and the indirect object. The verb also encodes the tense, aspect, mood, and the social register (formal vs. informal, and in informal speech, the sex of the person addressed). Polypersonality is found in other unrelated language families, perhaps most notably, in the indigenous languages of North America and the Arctic Rim. Let’s revert to our original example: ‘John hit the ball with the bat’. There is just one event here; it is a singularity in space and time. But our IE syntax breaks down that event into its participants and presents it as something that unfolds in time. Our language draws attention away from the event itself and focuses instead on its various parties (John, bat, ball; it distorts a quantum event so that it appears to occupy a region of spacetime. This is a highly structured view of reality that requires a library of metaphysical assumptions. Ergative, polypersonal, and middle voiced languages are more respectful of the ontological integrity of the event itself. This cross cultural analysis of language shines a light on a familiar problem: the chicken or the egg! Ergative, polypersonal, and middle voiced languages see the event as primary and its participants as secondary. On the other hand, our modern IE languages reverse the gestalt: participants are primary, events secondary. Who am ‘I’? An intentional subject who makes things happen…or the distillation of a process? Philosophically, the Middle Voice paradigm is reflected in the philosophies of Anaximander, Buber, and Whitehead (among others). But how does any of this connect to Jesus or the Prime Directive? Modern IE is the language of imperialism – military, political, economic, cultural and spiritual. That is why our ‘Enlightened’ civilization (1492 – 1969) was so determined to convert ‘savages’ and ‘heretics’ to the ‘right shade’ of Christianity…and to exterminate all others. After Columbus and Machiavelli at least, all history is the history of trespass . Our so-called ‘explorers’ raised cultural, and sometimes ethnic, genocide to an art form, all in the name of God and civilization. Columbus was the anti-Kirk. Far from preserving indigenous culture, its extermination was Job One. It was not until the global Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s that diversity was recognized as something worth preserving. The advent of political liberalism in the second half of the 18 th century extended only to propertied while males of European extraction, the guardians of modern Indo-European. It became the life’s work of the post WWII generations to extend the franchise to people of different classes, races, genders, cultures and even perhaps to some non-human life forms; we are still in the middle of this process with no defined end in sight. Are we growing into a civilization governed by the Prime Directive? Or are we finally heeding Jesus’ call to keep off the grass, i.e. to avoid trespassing against others and to forgive those who trespass against us? Either way, we are hopefully in the throes of the greatest cultural transformation in 500 years…or not! Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Got Money? David Cowles May 20, 2026 “The main reason that people who don’t have money don’t have money is that they don’t have money.” Recently, I retired from a job that had occupied my attention for a mere 45 years. It was the worst of jobs, it was the best of jobs, but thank God, it paid well. I was able to provide my family with material advantages intended to make up for the lack of a fully engaged spouse or parent. Since I retired, I have made more money each year than I ever did working! It’s called investing. Now, of course, we happen to be living in a charmed era, investment-wise. You’d have to be a pretty poor money manager not to have made gains over the last 10 years. However, I now suffer from the conviction, possibly delusional, that I could have made money in less advantageous periods as well. There’s precedent. In early 1970’s Boston, two friends of mine purchased a six family residential structure now valued at $6,000,000. Cost: $10,000. I myself had an opportunity to buy a popular neighborhood bar…for $10,000. Or I could have bought a working farm in Maritime Canada…again, $10,000. It gets worse. In both ventures I would have had partners so I would not have needed the full 10k…but I did need a seemingly unattainable 1k just to be included in the conversation. No joy! In those days, George McGovern was running for President on a platform that included a $1,000 minimum annual income for all Americans. No need to ask what I was doing on election day! Like Jacob in the Old Testament, I had to work - in his case for 14 years, in my case for 45 years - just to create the capital we lacked at the beginning of our careers. Did someone say ‘Wage Slaves’? Both Jacob and I (several orders of magnitude below) went on to live economically comfortable lives. But at what cost? Arguably, I worked 45 years to get to where I could have been Day One if I’d had $10,000 in my sock drawer. (Burglars take note, I will be moving my money later today.) In every economic epoch, the generation of wealth relies on the same three sources: Inspiration (innovation, imagination, ingenuity), Perspiration (labor), and Capital (money, land). Inspiration derives its economic value from its future utility, Perspiration from our present exertions, Capital from wealth created in the past, conserved, and now unlocked. In every era, all three sources necessarily contribute to the generation of wealth, but in proportions that vary depending on the means of production characteristic of the epoch. Likewise, all three sources share in the fruits of economic activity but not necessarily in proportion to their actual contributions. The relationship between contributions made and rewards received is called Political Economy . The disparity between the two is called Alienation . Examples : Much of the wealth generated in the ante-bellum American South was attributable to Labor (slavery) but that wealth was routed primarily to the holders of Capital (plantation owners). The Industrial Revolution substituted the factory (wage slavery) for the plantation. Marxists proposed to invert the distribution of rewards between capital and labor. Fatally, they failed to acknowledge the crucial role played by Inspiration and so failed to reward those contributors appropriately. Hyper-materialism turned out to be Marx’s Achilles Heal. Happily, the Industrial Revolution is behind us… along with the Enlightenment philosophy that grounded it. We are now in the third stage of the Cyber Revolution: (1) Computerization (PC and the smart phone). (2) Socialization (internet, the web, and social media). (3) Artificial Intelligence (the democratization of information and agency). The Cyber Age age puts a premium on Innovation and rewards it accordingly. Capital remains essential to meet infrastructure demands so stock market returns are healthy. The odd person out, as usual, is Labor. In a world where much of what we have traditionally thought of as work can be automated with gains in both quality and efficiency, grunt work has become the least important leg of the economic tripod. We’ve come a long way from Tara and the assembly line. We are truly in the process of turning the economic paradigm on its head. For millennia Labor has been over-exploited and under-rewarded. Now that must change! As Labor becomes less essential, and solidarity more so, compensation must exceed contribution. At least since the Middle Ages, Labor has played a disproportionately important role in wealth creation – a role that has been systematically under-rewarded. In order to sustain productivity, it was necessary to embed non-economic, quasi-economic, and meta-economic memes into our culture; for example: He (sic) who works, eats. Work earns respect; idleness…contempt. We have a moral obligation to contribute to the commonweal. Work provides an opportunity for us to express our creativity. Work ennobles the spirit. The Intellectual History of the late 19 th century can be understood as a contest between Marx and his foil, Pope Leo XIII. Interestingly, both agreed on the primacy of human labor on the spectrum of social goods. We can no longer afford such ideological illusions. Yes, ‘work’ will continue to be a necessary part of life for the foreseeable future…but not 100,000 hours of work in a lifetime. Technology allows us to leverage our efforts to generate much greater productivity in many fewer hours. The character of work will need to change; emphasis must now be on the 3 C’s: Creativity, Craft, and Care. We’ll need to find new ways to distribute societal wealth, ways that are not hog-tied to Labor. At this early stage, it would be a mistake to hyperfocus on any single solution. We are in the ‘let a thousand flowers bloom’ stage; but several ideas have already surfaced: A 30 hour work week (40 hours pay) Sabbatical years (at full salary) A minimum annual income, not tied to Labor, for all legal residents These are worth exploring. But we should also be considering a more fundamental reorientation; for example: (1) A national bank created specifically to provide no interest, low verification, micro capital investments to budding entrepreneurs, perhaps piggy-backing on the current student loan infrastructure or using blockchain to create a secure, anonymized, decentralized application and distribution network. If I can borrow public money to pay for college, why not for alternative skills training or to finance my own start-up? The main reason that people who don’t have money don’t have money is that they don’t have money. We can fix that! (2) A sovereign wealth fund that invests in bleeding edge technology and vests every legal resident with an equal share over time. This fund would supplement existing public and private retirement plans (e.g. social security, pensions) but without any tie to employment. (3) A pre-K through 12 educational system, finally liberated from the need to train children to be ‘productive’ members of the workforce, now dedicated to stimulating curiosity, promoting creativity, and empowering problem solving. I envision a blizzard of public and private school alternatives offering a variety of foci, loci, teaching styles, even languages of instruction. When it comes to curriculum, N=1. (4) A pervasive recognition that we prosper not at the expense of our neighbor (class war), but in solidarity (community). The grandfather of Western Philosophy, Anaximander Hot Link (6 th century BCE), taught that ‘actual entities’ come to be when 2 or more ‘potential entities’, freely and without expectation of reciprocation, grant each other ‘reck’ ( chreon ), i.e. ‘what’s due them’ or ‘what they need’, e.g. respect, the space to become all that they can be, agape (love), shalom (peace). They template one another and the potential becomes actual in the process. I am (self) only because ‘you’ (other) are! I am in the context of you, the ‘other’. This concept resurfaces in the New Testament, primarily in the writings of Paul and John, as koinonia (communion). The 1 st Letter of John is particularly explicit: “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have koinonia (communion, fellowship) with one another…” (1: 7) Again ‘light’ suggests reflection: if we walk together in the same light, we reflect one another, we template. In this way the early Christian church recaptured the primacy of mutuality that inspired Western philosophy prior to the Platonic catastrophe. Fast forward another 1500+ years and we rediscover the ontology of mutuality in Hasidic Judaism and later still in the 20 th century existentialism of Martin Buber. The emphasis on mutuality in the ontologies of Anaximander, Jesus, the Baal Shem Tov and Buber ran counter to the cultural norms of their day: slavery, imperialism, serfdom, laissez-faire capitalism, nationalism, and even fascism. Regardless, mutuality remained a moral imperative for those who recognized it. But ‘the times that are a-changing’ (Dylan): figuratively speaking at least, we are at ‘the dawning of the Age of Aquarius ’ ( Hair ). It is not for nothing that Pisces , the fish, is an important symbol in the New Testament. Fish represent wealth and the abundance of nature, but abundance that can often be unlocked only at the expense of backbreaking, alienated, labor. How naïve am I to suggest that we may finally be entering an era when ethics and economics harmonize! And yet… Mutuality, the key to the Good Life, indeed the key to life itself, promises to unlock prosperity for the entire planet, if only our ancient idolatries (race, class, caste, etc.) don’t get in the way. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

Philosophers Philosophers are artists working in the medium of ideas. They function both as landmarks and as signposts in our never-ending search for Truth. After Parmenides What to "Western philosophy is the history of our effort to understand the silence of Parmenides, or to break it." Read More Causes of the Civil War “Chaos is not an absence of causality, as is generally supposed, but an excess.” Read More Beyond Pascal's Wager “Once we get past skyscrapers and suspension bridges, we really have no idea what’s going on, do we?” Read More Robert Frost Was Wrong “Waiter, bring me one order of everything on the menu and when I’ve finished, I’ll pay for whatever dish I liked best.” Read More Philip Goff “You’ll end up living life as though you were counting cards at a Black Jack table in Las Vegas – in other words, profitably! But it’s still gambling.” Read More Bakunin Nailed It “Writing at the same time as Kierkegaard, 10 years before Nietzsche, and 50 years before Heidegger and Sartre, Bakunin got it right.” Read More Boethius “The ultimate pattern of events is determined, while the specific events that form that pattern are entirely undetermined.” Read More Thrown by Heidegger “Of course, I have no name, no face, no identity; I belong nowhere.” Read More Albert Camus “Either death is ultimately subjected to something greater and more general than itself (Being) or death ultimately subjects everything to itself and then nothing else has any meaning or value.” Read More Friedrich Nietzsche “Value-based judgments assume a transcendent point of view and sooner or later, that way of thinking leads to God-talk and any such talk is strictly verboten.” Read More Chatting With C.S. Lewis “It is the very mark of a perverse desire that it seeks what is not to be had… As long as you are governed by that desire, you will never get what you want.” Read More LEIBNIZ “In this model, God is a giant switching station, sharing qualities among myriad monads.” Read More

Haiku is a traditional form of Japanese poetry, usually consisting of 17 syllables, arranged in three lines of five, seven, and five syllables, respectively. Does this formal rigor seem like it would be inhibiting? The reverse is true. It’s liberating! Haiku Corner Haiku is a traditional form of Japanese poetry, usually consisting of 17 syllables, arranged in three lines of five, seven, and five syllables, respectively. Does this formal rigor seem like it would be inhibiting? The reverse is true. It’s liberating! Learn about Haiku? Read some Haiku? (See below.) Write and submit a Haiku? (We may publish it in a later issue.) Join (or start) a Renga Cycle (our “Japanese Poetry Slam”). Haiku Read More Renga Cycle 1 Read More Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue

Essays in Aletheia Today magazine relating to scripture and how to incorporate scripture into family, life, work, and daily life. Plus, original prayers, reflections, and meditations. Spirituality Mar 1, 2024 I'm Ageless and Timeless “I am a spy; I can sense it, but I have no spy craft, no Bond-tech, and no ‘should you choose to accept it’ mission.” Read More Mar 1, 2024 Is Techno-Optimism a New Religion? “This is the first time I’ve seen AI presented with all the trappings of a new Aquarian theology.” Read More Mar 1, 2024 Happiness “Some folks are ‘happy’ living their lives on a beach; others need a boardroom; some need a bar.” Read More Jul 15, 2023 Ave Maria “Of course, no one needs to invoke Mary’s intercession… (but) imagine OJ without his Dream Team.” Read More Jun 1, 2023 The Our Father “This tiny prayer…is a cyber-wonks dream. The density of information content is out of this world, quite literally!” Read More Jun 1, 2023 The Structure of Prayer Formal Christian Prayer is a cornucopia of spirituality. Yet in the Roman Catholic tradition at least, two prayers stand out: Jesus' prayer, the Our Father, and the Hail Mary (Ave Maria). Read More Apr 15, 2023 My Breastplate Read More Oct 15, 2022 St. Paul’s Lord’s Prayer “But deliver us from evil,” this last verse is the key to entire prayer. Read More Oct 15, 2022 St. Paul’s Lord’s Prayer “But deliver us from evil,” this last verse is the key to entire prayer. Read More Oct 15, 2022 Faith, Hope, and Love This excerpt from the writings of St. Paul is among the best-known passages in Judeo-Christian scripture. But what does it really mean? Read More Sep 1, 2022 Serenity Prayer Is the Sermon ‘in the can’ after all? Read More Jul 5, 2022 Teaching Physics in the 21st Century Schools will soon be reopening with kids returning to begin a new school year. Now is the time to begin thinking about the fall curriculum. In this article, we outline a 10-unit physics curriculum for grades four through eight, all based on The Yellow Submarine. Read More May 29, 2022 Being a Faith Chaplain in a Secular World As a chaplain, I am allowed to talk about faith or pray with a client if that is what he or she wants. Like many people in our secular and even religious society, I am to be there for ‘those of all faiths or none.’ Read More Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, September Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to Table of Contents, June Issue Spirituality is the practice of Philosophy and Theology; it is the ‘How To’ for those who “walk in the valley of the shadow of death.”

Aletheia Today magazine essays relating to religious writings, beliefs, values, and traditions held by Judaism and Christianity Theology Theology is the intersection of Philosophy and Mythology where we consider matters of ultimate concern. Apr 1, 2025 Miracles “…Everything that happens happens only once…there is nothing under the Sun that is not new! Being and novelty are synonymous.” Read More Apr 1, 2025 Is There ‘True Religion’? “We confuse a person’s right to express a hairbrained idea with the notion that that idea should be taken seriously.” Read More Feb 1, 2025 Apocalypse Now! “We are not midway through the Second Act of a Mystery Play called Salvation… Brunhilda has sung; we just need to applaud!” Read More Dec 1, 2024 Jesus Gets Us! “A bond exists between us that unites who Jesus is essentially with who I am existentially. I change with every breath; Jesus never changes.” Read More Dec 1, 2024 R U Body, Soul or Spirit? “Are soul and spirit just two names for one concept…and do we need either?” Read More Oct 15, 2024 World Without God Amen “God is dead, and we have killed him…who will wipe this blood from us?” (Nietzsche) Read More Sep 1, 2024 Mark’s Diary – Notes for a Screenplay “And so they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were filled with awe, while those who followed behind were afraid.” Read More Sep 1, 2024 Is Christology a TOE “Cosmologists cannot rely on science any more than astronomers can rely on religion. There can be no successful TOE (‘Theory of Everything’) without both. ….” Read More Sep 1, 2024 The Mustard Seed “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds find shelter in its branches.” (Matthew 13: 31 – 32) Read More Aug 29, 2024 Show Us a Sign! “We have been shown our sign…and it’s a simple one. The sign is that there are signs!” Read More Jul 15, 2024 God is a Bother! “The reason most people don’t believe in God is that they haven’t fully considered the alternative.” Read More Jun 1, 2024 Job Verses God: The Trial of the Epoch “Job v. God is the Marbury v. Madison of theological law.” Read More Jun 1, 2024 Proof of God: The Empirical Argument “Because God is not perfectly manifest anywhere in our World, we perceive that God is present everywhere…” Read More Jun 1, 2024 Proof of God: The Ontological Argument “Value permeates every nook and cranny of the World. God is Value… No values – no world...” Read More Jun 1, 2024 The Beatles and John “Both Johns looked out their respective windows and saw their worlds on fire. Both Johns situated their profound and ultimately hopeful message in that apocalyptic context.” Read More Apr 15, 2024 Marx vs. Mark “The Gospel of Mark is no biography…It’s a call to action, a manifesto, a How-To manual for non-violent guerilla warriors everywhere, 1st century…or 21st.” Read More Apr 15, 2024 Sacramental Priesthood “I’m willing to bet there are some people out there (actually, a lot of people) who would literally love to spend their careers revealing the presence of God to others.” Read More Mar 1, 2024 Philip Goff “You’ll end up living life as though you were counting cards at a Black Jack table in Las Vegas – in other words, profitably! But it’s still gambling.” Read More Mar 1, 2024 The Theology of Science-Fiction Can AI have soul ? Read More Jan 15, 2024 Faith Is Not Belief Without Evidence "Faith is not belief without evidence; it's the content of a relationship with God and is based upon the private experience of God's love." Read More Jan 15, 2024 A ‘New’ Old Theory of Consciousness “The simplest unicellular species display behaviors that are clearly cognitive in nature.” Read More Dec 1, 2023 Re-Imagining the Magnificat "In our zeal to project our conceptions of The Ideal Woman onto this enigmatic first-century figure, we’ve strayed a bit from the little we do know." Read More Dec 1, 2023 Christ and the Kids “So what is it that makes children so much better than us? First…a child is not a ‘mini-you’… Is an Octopus a mini-you? Then neither is a child.” Read More Oct 15, 2023 Idolatry “An idol is that with no this…the sound of one hand clapping. It is Alice’s Cheshire Cat – all face, no body; all hat, no cattle!” Read More Oct 15, 2023 “Is God Dead?” “Right now, scientists and philosophers all over the world are engaged in the search for a ‘TOE’, a Theory of Everything…(but) we already have such a TOE.” Read More Oct 15, 2023 The 7th Day “Genesis is no longer something that explains; it has become something that has to be explained away.” Read More Oct 15, 2023 Satan, Mary, and ‘Da Judge’ “Satan glorified political power for its own sake. He defended the socio-economic status quo…Jesus’ mother proclaimed a political and economic revolution...” Read More Sep 1, 2023 ChatGOD "ChatGPT can be smart, but it can never be holy. In being an e-being, precisely because its intelligence is artificial, it is necessarily alienated from the Divine. It can only be 'as if,' never truly as." Read More Sep 1, 2023 Navigating the Nexus of AI "Imagine if AI had its own commandments, like 'Thou shalt treat all data equally.' Encouraging ethical principles in AI programming can keep its decisions in line with virtues like fairness, justice, and empathy." Read More Jul 15, 2023 The Theology of Mikhail Bakunin “Bakunin was fierce in his profession of atheism; but unlike his Marxist counterparts, he was not shy about using the language of Judeo-Christian theology to make his points.” Read More Jul 15, 2023 A Jewish Approach to Cognitive Dissonance "I would like to be an intellectually honest spiritual seeker, a warm and loving and dynamic wife and mother, a supportive friend; but at the end of the day, I look in the mirror, and see an annoyed and tired dish rag, and all I want to do is have a cup of coffee and a bar of chocolate. Warm dynamic spiritual seeker aside, anyone who stands between me and my mug is in for it." Read More Jul 15, 2023 Eucharist “…The spacetime world of matter and energy, 14 billion years old and almost 100 billion light years across, is not the final word.” Read More Jul 15, 2023 Korach Over Dinner "Like most people of my generation, I cringe when I hear the M word." Read More Jun 1, 2023 God’s Will “We can say that God wills the events that constitute the world, even though God does not in any way cause those events to occur.” Read More Jun 1, 2023 Whitehead and Zohar “Zohar and Whitehead, separated by more than 500 years, both deliver us a map of the world where X marks the spot of the eschatological treasure.” Read More Apr 15, 2023 Mary Magdalene, The Witness "That Christ ushered in this new era of life and liberation in the presence of women, and that he sent them out as the first witnesses of the complete gospel story, is perhaps the boldest, most overt affirmation of their equality in his kingdom that Jesus ever delivered." Read More Apr 15, 2023 Growing Into Pentecost "In any case, Pentecost turns out to be a big deal after all. Reformed folk can join with those claiming to be a “full-gospel church”—maybe even remind the others of some overlooked elements in that mix." Read More Apr 15, 2023 Matzah of Hope--Passover Part One "This matzah, which we set aside as a symbol of hope for the thousands of women who are anchored to marriages in name only, reminds us that slavery comes in many forms." Read More Apr 15, 2023 Tantum Ergo Read More Mar 1, 2023 Two-Faced God “All gods are two faced…and that’s not blasphemy!” Read More Mar 1, 2023 Hell “Nobody believes in Hell anymore…and that’s a good thing.” Read More Jan 15, 2023 Educating Christians “We must teach our children a totally counter-cultural model of nature. We must teach the doctrines of our Faith, not as exceptions to natural law, but as the highest expressions of natural law.” Read More Nov 30, 2022 Christ the King “Sir, you are quite simply insane. We know exactly what holds our universe together; it is electromagnetism, gravity, and the strong force…not Christ.” Read More Oct 15, 2022 What Did John See? The Bible doesn’t tell us what John saw, but it does tell us that the breaking of the seventh seal was followed by half an hour of total silence. Why? Read More Oct 15, 2022 A Theory of Everything (TOE) Thirty years after the death of Jesus…St. Paul quoted an already ancient Christology…a TOE. Read More Jul 13, 2022 Competing Creeds Suppose we were to express our generation's secular worldview as a 'creed,' how would it read? Read More Jul 13, 2022 The Great Commandment “The second is like it…” Really? The second is like it? Like it? At first glance, this seems ridiculous. The two verses don’t look alike at all. One concerns our relationship with God, the Almighty, the creator of heaven and earth; the other concerns our relationship with the jerk down the street who doesn’t mow his lawn and plays his music loud on Saturday nights. Read More Jul 12, 2022 The People's Creed But did you know that a 6th century Irish poet developed his own version of a ‘creed’…which I have named, the People’s Creed? Read More May 29, 2022 Christology 101 “…Without Christ, the World would consist of a vast multiplicity of isolated events, a sea of ships passing in the night.” Read More May 28, 2022 Jesus Meets Mister Spock Science and Religion should assist each other in pursuing the truth. Science can be too closed to the life of the spirit, the mind, imagination, thought, and creativity. Religion can be closed to anything new that threatens its perception of reality. Read More Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, September Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to Table of Contents, June Issue