95 North. . . The Newspaper

I recently read Finding God in the Waves , a spiritual memoir by Mike McHargue. In Waves  McHargue explores the story of his own Christian faith, documenting his journey from good ol' Southern Baptist boy to atheism, all the way back to Christianity again.  The book is peppered with neuroscience, as McHargue attempts to square his spiritual experiences with what we know about the brain. The book is largely divided into three parts: McHargue's upbringing and comfortable evangelicalism, his subsequent (secret) conversion to atheism, and finally, his merging of science and faith, brought on by a mystical experience early in the morning on the beach. Needless to say, I recommend this book for anyone who has struggled to square religion with doubt, science, and what we know empirically about the world. My favorite quotes are below: On Prayer : "These days, my intercessory prayers are an act of surrender- a way to voice my hopes and my hopelessness, my power and ...

If you haven't heard SZA sing, run over to the record store and give her album CTRL a spin. Soon enough, you'll discover that she's created the freshest album in R&B since Solange's 2016 masterpiece A Seat at the Table , which I wrote about  here . While Solange's masterpiece focused on playing the long game, with drawn-out beats, lingering baselines, and vocal meditations that looked deep into the past, in many ways, SZA is the complete opposite. Her music is fresh. Immediate. Emotions? Raw. She's even sometimes crude. The world that makes up her songs is entirely relatable and real. She ponders work, being late to work, eating tacos, obsessing over TV shows, jealousy, emotional insecurity, carnal pleasures, sadness, joy, Las Vegas, New Jersey,  and everything else in between. In other words, it covers the same terrain the Bible does. As Cat Power once said, "and I'm not kidding". A few key songs: "Supermodel"  is drenched in ...