It’s up to us to create our own light during these dark times. In Let the Bells Ring Out, Barbara Lloyd McMichael writes about the National Bell Festival and the noble act of bell restoration. Why does humanity make the same mistakes over and over? We posed this question when we interviewed Dr. Peter Corning. In this age of anxiety, there is a way to flourish. Take a lesson from my essay “The Renaissance Belongs to You.” I wish you many blessings and much joy during this holiday season! – Patricia Vaccarino

Paul Ashe was (and still is) the marketing guy, and his conversation in that Washington D.C. barroom a few years back was with the pastor of the Georgetown Lutheran Church. Their convo led to the revelation that the church was the home of the city’s oldest Lutheran congregation, founded seven years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence – and two solid decades before the District of Columbia was designated the nation’s capital. But in recent years, Ashe learned, the church had developed a sad case of tintinnabulation deficit disorder.

While humanity has made many strides toward progress, as of late, our culture seems to be in a regression. Why do human beings make the same mistakes? This is the question we brought to the evolutionary biologist and author Dr. Peter Corning.