By JIM NICHOLS Let us suppose that adolescence and later adult life represent bookends of our human existence in terms of time. Granted, younger children come before adolescents, but it is in the latter that certain questions begin to arise. It is significant for my argument here that the questions adolescents ask are remarkably like the questions later adults ask.

By JIM NICHOLS Most of us have been there, probably more than once. We step into a dressing room, disrobe and, perhaps, put on some medical-type clothes or gown. We might get to leave our socks on so that the hard tile floor will not be so cold when we walk gingerly to the next room. The bed we lie

By JIM NICHOLS For sports fans, this pandemic has been frustrating. Sports provide us with rhythms in the year; we use the word “season” not only for changes in the temperature and moisture, but also for which sport is when. The Major League Baseball season is trying to get a start here in the middle of the summer season rather

By JIM NICHOLS Buried within this true, but weird, anecdote, is a fact that hardly anyone ponders: “How many rolls of toilet paper does it take to completely wrap a human being—head, body, arms, and legs?” One of my enriching academic experiences was to break away from the science building occasionally and audit university classes in other disciplines. One extended

By JIM NICHOLS I have mentioned before my fascination with the paradoxes of life, the opposites that must be simultaneously true and the tensions that we must accept. Lots of these paradoxes show up in scripture—for example, the last shall be first, Jesus is fully human and fully divine, if you think you can see, you are actually blind. However,

By JIM NICHOLS I suspect that I am not the only one frustrated, angered, confused, and altogether discombobulated by the world today. Frankly, it is difficult not to get discouraged and, I am afraid, let that discouragement lapse over into our spiritual lives. As I fight that concern, I realize that one of my problems is that I am thinking

By JIM NICHOLS Diffusion is a principle considered in many science classes. It is a simple concept, but quite significant in many physical situations. The concept identifies that a substance moves naturally from an area where it is more concentrated to an area where it is less concentrated. For instance, if one puts a spoonful of sugar into a cup

By JIM NICHOLS One way to make people happy is to carry a baby into a store. Taking one of these little ones out of the house was one of my favorite events of being a father. Once they get to be two years old or so the pleasure wears off for everyone (including the two-year-old), but, until then, carrying