You know this story. A butterfly in Brazil flaps its wings, and a few weeks later Texas has tornadoes instead of clear skies. It’s called the butterfly effect, and science fiction writers love it. In Back to the Future, Marty McFly almost erases himself from existence after travelling back to 1955 in a DeLorean. In It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey...

Editor's Note: On Fridays we're hosting a series called More Than a Sabbath, where employees discuss how they've taken, or need to take, a break. Today's installment is about taking a break from what paychecks permit us to do: consume. Each post is a response to How to Fast the Other Six Days. I try to avoid restaurant buffets because I have no...

  Our house celebrated a different kind of advent over the last few months. Every few weeks, our family sat down on the couch to prepare ourselves. We watched Ironman, Thor, the Incredible Hulk, Captain America, even Ironman II. I’m talking about the advent of The Avengers, of course. They’ve been here for two weeks, protecting the world’s imagination...

In the late 1960s, Dan Bowen was holding down two jobs. He served in the United States Air Force and worked part-time at a Texaco station. In those days, everyone knew the motto: “You can trust your car to the man who wears the star.” “That’s a good motto to live by,” Dan told me on the phone. Good work is about trust. Perhaps that explains why so many...