arts and culture on Exploration

Children—and then adults—with a firm foundation of joy also have the capacity to make positive contributions in the world. It starts with play and exploration. When a child has a firm foundation of jo...

[M]isery gives way to fun when you take an object, event, situation, or scenario that wasn’t designed for you, that isn’t invested in you, that isn’t concerned in the slightest for your experience of ...

We are exploring together. We are cultivating a garden together, backs to the sun. The question is a hoe in our hands and we are digging beneath the hard and crusty surface to the rich humus of our li...

This summer, millions of people across the world will be absorbed in a highly anticipated, years-in-the-making, high-fantasy adventure featuring evil sorcerers, legendary swords, dragons, and a classi...

The etymology of the word race, as used with regard to people, can be traced only to the sixteenth century. Around 1500 the English word race carried the sense of a group with a common occupation; by ...

I grew up near Washington D.C. surrounded by politics…I helped with the campaign of a friend’s father as he ran for state office, watched our friendly county supervisor become a US congressman, and le...

The creation of a white standard in the world during the age of exploration, and the white structural privilege prevalent for so long in America, led to what is often called “white privilege”. This is...

The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.

I once heard the missionary author Elisabeth Elliot tell of accompanying the Auca woman Dayuma from her jungle home in Ecuador to New York City. As they walked the streets, Elliot explained cars, fire...

Rules for Self Discovery: What we want most; What we think about most; How we use our money; What we do with our leisure time; The company we enjoy; Who and what we admire; What we laugh at.

Every now and then a man’s mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.

It takes fresh experiences, surroundings, and inputs for us to see familiar shadows in a new light.

Differences simply act as a yarn of curiosity unraveling until we get to the other side.

Let science extend the domain of actual knowledge, and lay bare as it may the secrets of the material world. It only exposes more and more the proportions of the great cathedral, and shows us the lamp...

As a society of unbelief, Western culture is devoid of a sense of journey, of adventure, because it lacks belief in much more than the cultivation of an ever-shrinking horizon of self-preservation and...

Let us begin with a question. Do you really know how to enjoy the world? Do you know how to enjoy yourself? One of the greatest parables in the New Testament has to do with the search for enjoyment an...

Our natural tendency is to watch the world from behind the windows of [our] cultural home and to act as if people from other countries, ethnicities, or categories have something special about them, . ...

I am told that when SAS soldiers parachute into unknown territory they are trained to pause before moving. They must first get their bearings and only then set out for their destination. That is wise ...

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

As we begin the 21st century, the Hubble space telescope is providing us with information about as yet uncharted regions of the universe and the promise that we may learn something about the origin of...

Beneath the clearly perceived, highly explicit surface culture, there lies a whole other world.

When I observe the luminous progress and expansion of natural science in modern times, I seem to myself like a traveller going eastwards at dawn, and gazing at the growing light with joy, but also wit...

We have never lived enough. Our experience is, without fiction, too confined and too parochial. Literature extends it, making us reflect and feel about what might otherwise be too distant for feeling....

Almighty God, throughout our days you seek us, yet we dismiss your presence. You stand ready to reveal yourself to us, yet we are distracted by our self-interests. Forgive our selfishness. Holy Spirit...

Why a story? We all think of our lives as stories, each with a main character (us) theme, and plot (interesteing so far, but as yet unfinished). We also love to hear stories about others and even abou...

The most important step in entering a new culture is to build trust. Only when people trust us will they listen to what we have to say.

When we keep purchasing, keep consuming, and keep envying and coveting, we are pining for what the objects represent: peace, ease, meaning, beauty, stability, adventure, knowledge, renown, connection,...

Exegesis is loving God enough to stop and listen carefully to what he says.

One of the most effective ways to learn about yourself is by taking seriously the cultures of others. It forces you to pay attention to those details of life which differentiate them from you.

I think when we go looking for fun what we are actually looking for is home. We are looking for peace. We are looking for simplicity, something to fill that spot that has been left by growing up or gr...