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Fall 2020 | Volume 38, Issue 4
Navigating Uncertainty
If 2020 is defined by one thing, it’s the ushering in of mass uncertainty. Uncertainty about how to behave in the face of a capricious virus, about the future, about whom to trust in the face of conflicting directives. What happens when a society that thought it was successful is shocked into realizing that it can no longer assume an infinitely upward path of progress? What happens to human character when we lose confidence in the same? This fall issue of Comment is an attempt to explore these questions with both honesty and tenderness. We are seeking wisdom from untapped sources—children, jazz, mathematics, cultures adept at thinking in the present tense, refugees, the materially poor. What can we learn from these ignored sages, and from the biblical narrative of exile itself?
- 04
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Wisdom for the Wilderness
Preparing a new generation for uncertainty and flux.
- 08
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Wisdom for Uncertain Times
A biblical tour.
- 16
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Deeper Still
Facing fear, chronic illness, and death throughout a lifetime of uncertainty.
- 25
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Grace Under Pressure
A photo essay.
- 31
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Liberated to Play
Recovering Jürgen Moltmann and a paradigm for living into God's victory.
- 39
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With Faith Like a Child
Learning from Jesus's nearest and dearest.
- 43
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Through a Looking Glass Darkly
How (and how not) to be certain of yourself.
- 51
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Uncertainty: The Beauty and Bedrock of Statistics
Sometimes a bit of uncertainty can be a marvelous thing.
- 57
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Crisis Philanthropy: Challenges and Opportunities
An interview with David Weekley and Robin Weekley Bruce.
- 67
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Leadership in Uncertain Times
The refining fires of crisis are revealing truths about human precarity and possibility that could be a playbook for “normal” times.
- 71
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Spiritual Practices for Public Leadership
Guarding one's soul in and out of season.
- 74
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Seeking Patterns Beneath
Lessons on creative wisdom from jazz and its disciplines.
- 80
- Journeying from Fear to Love
- 84
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Proverbs from the Poor
Insights on living below the margins.