One Saturday morning, when I was around 10 years old, my elder brother Stuart and I were running and jumping off the side of our street down an embankment into a white sand pit left by builders. It ...

On February 27, Ireland’s venerable rock band U2, led by singer Bono (debt relief advocate, socially conscious musician, and “the most secular of saints” according to this week’s TIME magazine), won ...

Editor’s note: This article was first published in the Aug. 2, 1997, issue of America, titled “Praying the Psalms: Some Notes.” For some years I have been keeping rather extensive reading notebooks.