We often have to get away from it all to see the ordinary as extraordinary. Our first two articles give us a sense of wonder about travel. The first explores the unlikely efficiencies of biblical travel—and how crucial ancient transportation was in spreading the gospel. In the second, author Katelyn Beaty discovers a commonplace food only when she’s far, far away, high up in the Andes.
If you’ve wondered about the science behind Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed, you’ll appreciate “The Miracle of Exponential Growth.”
And if you’re looking for a prayer to honor the Savior on the occasion of his birth, you might enjoy this issue’s poem, which I composed a few years ago.
Another hodge-podge issue, but then again, as theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar notes, we can find grace notes anywhere:
For this voice from eternity whispers and breathes right through everything that exists in the world, all intra-mundane values; and, without depriving the things of this world of their meaning and value, it lends them a bottomless dimension, exploding whatever is closed, relativizing whatever seems ultimate, revealing hidden depths in what seems simple, sweetening pain and bringing reconciliation to what is tragic.
—Mark Galli, co-editor
