Weekend Reads 6/16/18

How Tolkien created Middle-earth

Today, Tolkien might have come to represent the old guard of fantasy – the “locker room” that the late Ursula K LeGuin once derided. Yet fierce passion for his work endures, and even his harshest critics will concede that few creators have succeeded in building a paracosm that touches the depth of Middle-earth.

Why Rich Kids Are So Good at the Marshmallow Test

Similarly, among kids whose mothers did not have college degrees, those who waited did no better than those who gave in to temptation, once other factors like household income and the child’s home environment at age 3 were taken into account. For those kids, self-control alone couldn’t overcome economic and social disadvantages.

Amid rampant sexual harassment in science, academies aren’t ejecting abusers

Though academic institutions have put policies and training schemes in place to address harassment, those are largely failing women—and not deterring harassers, the report found. In fact, policies based on appeasing federal laws tend to focus on symbolic compliance and function to avoid institutional liability rather than thwart would-be harassers.

The Path of Wisdom: The Bible Actually Invites Us on a Quest

As I see it, rather than a book designed primarily to provide answers, the Bible is a book designed to cultivate Wisdom—which is a lifelong process of maturing us into disciples who wander well along the unscripted path of faith, in-tuned to the presence of God along the way.

Expecting the Bible to be an answer book distorts the Bible’s purpose.