July’s 50th-anniversary commemoration of the Apollo moon landing struck a few sour notes about where we were then and what we’ve done since. A great achievement, for sure, but it didn’t open a Star-Trekkian world of possibility for exploring “the Final Frontier.” Going to the moon looked like a great leap, but compared to the inconceivable size of space, a modern cynic might compare it to a puddle jump.

Liberal Arts, released in 2012, is an unassuming film tribute from actor Josh Radnor to his alma mater, Kenyon College. In the film, Radnor’s character is experiencing an early midlife crisis when he receives an invitation to the retirement party of his favorite professor. Returning to campus, he sees from the perspective of a worldly-wise Gen Xer rather than a wide-eyed freshman. The professors are cynical, the students are scary, and the attachment he forms with a quirky freshman girl doesn’t go where they expect—and yet.

One summer afternoon several years ago I noticed a loud buzzing sound from our front porch, like a bumblebee or cicada. The creature on the screen even looked like a cicada at first, wings spread as though it had come to light and would soon take off for other perches. Then, with a gasp, I realized it was a hummingbird, blurring its wings furiously between short rest pauses, its beak firmly wedged in the mesh.

Several of my Facebook “friends” are flaming liberals whom I seldom engage. Part of the reason is that I don’t want them to unfriend me, but a bigger reason is that I can’t begin to unpack some of their bizarro-world statements. One of these acquaintances—I’ll call her X—posted a brief meme last month: I love abortion! Clear and forceful as a punch to the stomach, but I felt no need to respond because so many already had. A man (M) who sympathized with X’s cause criticized her method: “That’s not the best framing for the issue.”  

On April 27 in Poway, Calif., a young man with an AR-15 rifle entered a synagogue during a Passover service and began shooting. He wounded three people and killed one before two attendees at the service rushed him. Later, authorities identified the alleged shooter as a lifelong church member, the son of an Orthodox Presbyterian elder, who was homeschooled until ninth grade. How could this happen?

You’ve probably heard the Mark Twain quote: “When I was a boy of fourteen my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he’d learned in seven years.”

Years ago, on an episode of Focus on the Family, I heard the story of an experimental school for young children. The school’s founders wanted to challenge the students to tap into their natural curiosity and boldness, so they knocked down the playground fences to allow the kids to explore beyond their prescribed boundaries. Instead of free-ranging all over the neighborhood, however, the children hardly ventured beyond the schoolhouse door. Moral: Kids need boundaries so they can feel secure while tapping into their natural curiosity and boldness.