A story from Malcolm Gladwell's Blink forces you to wrestle with this critical question: what keeps us from seeing people as they truly are?

Blink is a book about "the power of thinking without thinking." It's a look at how choices made in an instant aren't as simple as they seem. In one of his many examples in the book, Gladwell shows how the classical music world realized that their system for auditioning ...

Be not angry that you cannot make others as you want them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.

—Thomas à Kempis

Top cosmetic surgeries in 2008:

• Breast augmentation: 355,671
• Liposuction: 341,144
• Eyelid surgery: 195,104
• Nose reshaping: 152,434
• Tummy tuck: 147,392

Texts: John 1:1–18

Principle: Instead of being judgmental, God invites us to communicate truth the way he does—by incarnational living.

Objects: Half a dozen Nerf-like balls—all very soft—with "Truth" written on them in large, block letters, and a paper bag big enough to hold all the balls

Experience: Take the paper bag, filled with the balls, to the pulpit with you.

While preaching ...

Dr. Katrina Firlik was the first woman admitted into the neurosurgery residency at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Her recent book, Another Day in the Frontal Lobe, provides a glimpse into the training of a brain surgeon. In one chapter she shares a story from the last year of her residency—a time when she was already becoming jaded to the tragedies of neurological devastation: ...

Dove soap has released a series of commercials that question the beauty industry's relentless pursuit of the "perfect woman."

In a commercial called "Evolution," a woman wearing no makeup walks to a chair and sits down. As the camera focuses on her face, we see a series of time-lapse pictures that show her "evolve" into a billboard model.

First the make-up artists tone her skin to perfection. Then ...

When our children were young, my husband and I decided we wouldn't watch R-rated movies. We wouldn't allow our children to watch them, so we decided that to watch them ourselves would be confusing to them. We made this decision in good conscience and never regretted it. I found, however, that it made me feel judgmental toward other parents who watched R-rated movies. I began to feel they weren't fully ...

The A & E documentary Beauty in a Jar is an examination of the $7 billion cosmetics industry in the United States. It covers the historical, cultural, and social aspects of women's make-up. As the documentary begins, Linda Wells, editor-in-chief of Allure magazine, comments: "Women want to look better. It's such a simple wish for all women." Various scenes of women putting on make-up are shown. "It's ...

Dick Rowe was one of the most famous talent scouts in the music industry. It's safe to say he would rather you remember him for his better moments—like the day he signed The Rolling Stones to a recording contract. He'd probably like for you forget about what happened in 1962. That year an unpolished quartet auditioned for Rowe, leaving him exceedingly unimpressed. In addition to rejecting the ...

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I walked in the house one day and—feeling full of myself, a movie star—I said to my mother, "Did you ever think this was all going to happen?" She was like, "Please. First of all, go wash the windows for me. You have no idea how many people have been praying for you when you were being a knucklehead."