Christians of all denominations are celebrating Holy Week, the high point of the year in the church’s liturgical calendar.
Holy Week begins with a commemoration on Palm Sunday, hailing Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. It ends on Easter Sunday, celebrating our Lord’s resurrection from the tomb.
But in between these high points stands the cross. In between these moments of rejoicing lies the crucifixion.
Our lives sometimes play out in a similar way.
We all experience moments of happiness and joy. Some we experience regularly, like enjoying a good meal or having a good laugh with friends. Others we experience more sporadically but to a greater degree. Graduations. Weddings. The birth of a child.
And yet, in between these events are severe moments of sorrow. Perhaps it’s relational suffering due to the loss of a friendship. Maybe it’s physical suffering because of a cancer diagnosis. Perhaps it’s emotional distress from a suicide or the death of a loved one.
Harvard could lose more than $8.9 billion in government grants and contracts pending a federal investigation into campus antisemitism and civil rights violations.
In a letter notifying the university of the review, representatives of the federal government’s Joint Task Force Combatting Antisemitism wrote:
“U.S. taxpayers invest enormously in U.S. colleges and universities, including Harvard University. These funds are an investment and, like any investment, are based on the recipient’s performance, not owed as a matter of custom or right.”
To maintain its “financial relationship with the United States government,” the letter continues, Harvard must make critical reforms, including:
Banning masks on campus, which will prevent protesters from covering their faces.
Clarifying and enforcing rules about when, where and how students can protest.
Disciplining students who have committed antisemitic violations of school rules.
Adopting “merit-based” hiring and admissions policies, rather than selecting employees and students of certain races, sexes and ideological perspectives.
Cooperating with law enforcement to protect students’ safety.
As if right from the script, complete with the lengthening shadows and the setting sun falling on the emerald green grass of Augusta National, Rory McIlroy won the 89th annual Masters Tournament on Sunday evening in a one-hole playoff over Justin Rose of England.
Just after sinking the winning putt, Rory stepped off the green, hugged and kissed his wife, Erica and stooped down to pick up and hug and kiss his daughter, Poppy.
It wasn’t the first time a child stole the show in Georgia.
Golf fans might remember Bubba Watson’s son Caleb toddling over to the green back in 2014 to congratulate his father.
At the time, Watson, who is a Christian, shared how much his family grounds him. Bubba and his wife, Angie, adopted Caleb in 2012.
“He [my son] puts life in perspective,” Watson said.
“Golf is a game. When I play bad, he doesn’t care. When I play great, he doesn’t care. All he cares about is, ‘Daddy give him a hug, Daddy pick him up.’ Looking at my son, I want to be as Christ-like as possible. I’ll never be perfect, I’m always going to mess up, but my whole goal is to be the role model for my son.”
Fans are sometimes given a glimpse of an athlete’s family after an event but rarely see them in the middle of all the training and work.
Sacramento Public Library is partnering with Planned Parenthood Mar Monte to offer free “sexual health resources,” including contraceptives and graphic sexual education materials, to patrons of all ages.
The California Family Council (CFC), a Focus on the Family-allied organization, explained, saying,
“In a move that sidesteps parental rights and raises serious concerns about the sexualization of children, the Sacramento Public Library has partnered with Planned Parenthood Mar Monte to install ‘sexual health resource cabinets’ in 12 of its 28 public library branches.”
These cabinets contain condoms, dental dams, pregnancy tests, lubrication, and sex educational pamphlets — available to anyone, of any age, without restriction or parental consent.
The organization said in an email the resources have “parents and child advocates alarmed,” with CFC Vice President Greg Burt adding,
“This is a grotesque violation of parental rights. Parents take their children to the library expecting books — not a sexual health free-for-all.”
“Condoms and lubricant have no place in the hands of children, especially without their parents’ knowledge or consent.”
CFC further explained,
“The cabinets are openly placed in common areas, with signage asking: ‘Having sex? How safe are you?’”
New research in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia comes to a very interesting and contrarian conclusion: “Unmarried individuals may have a lower risk of dementia compared to married adults.”
This conclusion has been getting a good deal of press of late. But is this true — does being married really contribute to greater risk of dementia in older age?
We should all be skeptical of this conclusion, and Daily Citizen explains why.
First, a virtual mountain range of strong and consistent medical, psychiatric and social science research has consistently shown being married boosts all important measures of life well-being.
This includes the physical, emotional and cognitive health for women, men and children.
Some of the most foundational scholarly studies establishing this fact are found here, here, here and here. This is also shown to be internationally true.
One of the most recent surveys on this was published by the University of Virginia’s Brad Wilcox.
It indicates not just that healthy people are selected into marriage, but that the state of being married actually improves physical, mental and life health.
So, it is curious when a study surfaces pointing to contradictory findings on marriage’s relationship to improved mental well-being.
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