When promised she would soon be pregnant, Mary asked How can this be? A particular aspect of Gabriel’s message didn’t make sense. It was implausible. Plausibility is a sticking point in the post-Christian world. Mary’s question reminds us that the path to reasonable faith begins with widening the imagination.

The Christmas story includes the “Massacre of the Innocents” – Herod’s slaughter of young male children in and around Bethlehem. Mothers were left inconsolable, like “Rachel weeping for her children,” writes Matthew. But that’s not the lesson to be learned from Rachel. The rest of her story can comfort those who have lost a baby.

We enjoy breaks more than the lectures. David Thornburg says conferences may feature great speakers, but within a day or two, people begin staying out in the hall talking to peers. These breaks are “meeting a need,” he writes. They represent the best learning spaces. Lectures less so.

Sigmund Freud described America as “the most grandiose experiment the world has seen.” But “I am afraid it is not going to be a success.” For the American experiment to succeed, the Senate must be a saucer. Given recent developments, is the saucer broken?

The “holiday blues” are upon us. Dwindling daylight hours can be partly to blame. However, a blue funk can also be due to families expressing grief in ill-advised ways. This creates an unbearable burden. We feel it when visiting family over the holidays.

This Friday marks the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s death. But did you know that two other remarkable men also died on November 22, 1963? Fifty years from now, it will be interesting to see which one is recognized as having most benefited humanity.

We’re familiar with the n-word. It’s offensive, demeaning. There is, however, another n-word. Most folks are unfamiliar with it, evidenced in the fact that we use it all the time. And when adults use the other n-word with adults, the results are not good.

With the development of business schools came the dehumanization of work. This weekend in New York City, a gathering of believers will wrestle with humanizing work. It’s a big challenge; one that Harvard Business School professor Rakesh Khurana believes might fill “a gaping moral hole at the center of business education.”

“This course will change your life,” promises Michael Puett, a Harvard professor of Chinese history. His class is the third most popular at Harvard, a school founded on this date in 1636 with a promise: “Truth for Christ and the Church.” Some might see Puett’s class as a sign that Harvard is regressing. C. S….

Sheryl Sandberg encourages women in the workplace to “lean in.” The COO of Facebook believes they ought to challenge the common assumption that “men still run the world.” Women should, but solving this problem doesn’t start with leaning in.