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Author Archives: awtraughber
Maneuvering the Public/Private Divide
One of the trickier parts of being a teacher is how the work you do seeps into life beyond the classroom. It is not uncommon to hear teachers say something like “sometimes I wish I had work that I could … Continue reading
A High-Five Story
Here’s an interesting video from the folks at Laity Lodge. It involves one of my favorite writers (James K. A. Smith) and one of my favorite musicians (Andy Gullahorn). It’s a slightly awkward video, as it might seem to make … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Faith, Internet, Music
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Doing Good Work
From Purdy’s For Common Things: One thing that a culture does is give people ways of thinking about what they are doing. They can see the connections among their work, their talents and the needs of the world. They perceive … Continue reading
“Stable, Certain, Solid Things”
One of the things that is clear from the outset of reading For Common Things is that Purdy is a man shaped by a time (perhaps both personal and historic) that has really established his thinking in a fundamental way. … Continue reading
The Contemporary Question of the Self
One of the basic questions every worldview tries to answer (thank you, James Sire) concerns the nature of humanity. In class we often talk about whether man is good or evil by nature, how much choice we actually have in … Continue reading
Answering in the Affirmative
Friday morning, the first song in the morning’s shuffle was Toad the Wet Sprocket’s “Is It for Me.” As I walked around my classroom rearranging tables to prepare for student presentations and thought about the lyrics’ hope that odd things … Continue reading
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Speaking Upward
One of the trickiest parts of organizational or institutional life is knowing how to communicate well on different levels or to different audiences. This is especially true when you realize you have strong opinions about the way things “ought to … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Internet, Television
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Questioning the Need for Alarm
Seth Godin recently had something interesting to say about organizations and the “need for alarm.” Turns out there are things organizations can and should be mindful of. From Godin: Alarm is overrated. People say, “there’s no need for alarm,” as … Continue reading
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When Irony Killed the World
Perhaps the most important question posed by Mad Max: Fury Road was found scrawled on a couple of walls in the movie’s bleak landscape: who killed the world? And while it’s obvious in the movie that man and his greed … Continue reading
On Paying Attention
At the end of the final season of The Newsroom, Jedidiah Purdy and For Common Things get name-dropped. Being a fan of show-runner Aaron Sorkin, I decided to give the book a try. I ordered it from Amazon, only to … Continue reading
Space Enough, and Time 