Josh Lyons

My wife and I are currently waging a tiring, fierce, and ongoing battle of epic proportions—with our two-year-old. He notches his share of victories as we charge the trenches of teaching him the word “no,” how to feed himself without throwing or sling-shotting his food, and how to submit to the terrible monster known as “Bedtime,” and so on. (It is tough being a toddler.) My wife and I are hopeful that we will win the war.

In a January 11, 2024 article titled “Huge Ring of Galaxies Challenges Thinking on Cosmos,” the BBC describes how PhD student Alexia Lopez, of the University of Central Lancashire, recently discovered a gigantic, ring-shaped structure composed of galaxies and galaxy clusters. And when they say it is gigantic, they mean it—as in, one of the largest stellar “objects” known to exist!

Christmas is perhaps the most popular holiday in the world. People from a variety of perspectives and societies—from the devoutly religious who cry, “put Christ back in Christmas,” to famous atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris—participate in some form of Christmas celebrations. With Christmas rapidly approaching, let’s make what some may consider a strange comparison: Christmas versus Passover.

Not long ago, I attended an emotional family funeral and burial. It took place in a large Pennsylvania cemetery that contained graves going back to the 1700s. The cemetery’s website explained that the oldest legible tombstone dated to 1764, almost 260 years ago. Walking through that old cemetery made me think, Many people have been in these graves for over 200 years, far longer than they lived. As I watched a grave being closed today, their graves were closed multiple generations ago.