Reading Time: 7 minutes Hemant Mehta, otherwise known as the Friendly Atheist, sat down and chatted about the best advice he ever received. I got a lot of, well, real-world wisdom from the conversation. I think you will, too. Here’s a bit about him. Hemant Mehta is the founder and editor of FriendlyAtheist.com, a YouTube creator, and podcast co-host. […]
True Story
Posted inTrue Story
Approach, flatter, seduce, trap: That time a woman tried to lure me into a cult
Reading Time: 6 minutes I don’t remember her actual name—let’s go with Moonflower. She told me I was pretty and asked if I’d ever modeled, then motioned over to an older gentleman seated nearby. He owned a modeling agency, she said, slipping me his business card in case I was “interested.” Mr. Modeling Agency smiled and waved from his table.
I was intrigued—but not for the reasons you might think.
Posted inCulture
The road to hell: How a Christian missionary lost his life for nothing
Reading Time: 2 minutes In 2018, a missionary named John Allen Chau was killed by residents of North Sentinel Island, owned by India and home to the Sentinelese, one of the Andaman tribal people. After the decimation of the Amazon rainforest, they may be the only remaining Stone-Age-adjacent tribe on the planet. Chau was a Christian who felt it was […]
Posted inTrue Story
When absence outweighs presents: Grief and the holidays
Reading Time: 5 minutes “Nothing is something, where something is meant to be.” Nick Cave wrote those lyrics for Ghosteen, his album-length conversation with his dead son Arthur, and he was spot on. Even more, sometimes that nothing is everything. And loss alters everything, including our yearly observance of holidays. For many people, Thanksgiving and Christmas are already tough. […]
Posted inOp-Ed
AAI and hope and me
Reading Time: 4 minutes The AAI Files, Part Two OnlySky Ethics and Standards insist that all writers disclose any personal relationship to a story in a disclaimer. As I intend to write more articles about the abjectly avoidable slide into irrelevance of Atheist Alliance International (AAI), this article is that disclaimer. I promise most of my articles will be […]
Posted inTrue Story
How the pandemic took the toxic out of my Turkey Day
Reading Time: 5 minutes I first noticed the changed on Thanksgiving 2020. It was the height of the pandemic, so instead of the annual (heh) pilgrimage to my extended family’s Thanksgiving, I was at home with just my son and husband. So there had been no awkward endurance of my family saying a long performative grace over the meal.
That wasn’t the only thing missing. And like boneless chicken wings, what was missing somehow made what was left behind even better.
Posted inTrue Story
Supporting the people of Ukraine, one pizza at a time
Reading Time: 7 minutes The team drives through the decimated streets of Kharkiv, intent on their mission. Their armored car passes rubble from the pock-marked buildings, shattered by the nightly shelling. They are wearing bulletproof vests, as always. Without warning, shells fall from the sky, exploding all around their vehicle. Amazingly, the crew gets through intact. Is this a […]
Posted inThe Future
The overthinking humanist: Life in a world of eight billion
Reading Time: 13 minutes At 4 a.m. on Sunday, I just needed fifteen minutes to finish a news brief. Fifteen minutes, and I’d be ready to leave for a trip to a pueblo two hours away. Fifteen minutes, and I’d switch modes completely: from English to Spanish, from digital to analog, and from the high-minded literary life to something […]
Posted inTrue Story
How journaling helped me come home to myself
Reading Time: 6 minutes In a small-town Kansas laundromat, in the pages of my personal journal, I came face to face with someone I barely recognized.
Posted inTrue Story
The night I called Code Lavender
Reading Time: 6 minutes July 1995. It was my first night of internship, the next step after medical school. I’d already admitted a half dozen patients to the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit from the emergency room under the watch of a third-year resident. The CCU was the scariest first-night internship assignment there was. Even some patients joked about avoiding heart attacks in […]