March 2026 • Links Worth Your Time

March 26, 2026

Books, essays, podcast episodes, and more that I think are worth your time, plus recent cultural news that I’m paying attention to in the month of March…

BOOKS

Flourish by Daniel Coyle.

This book is a short, readable guide filled with anecdotes and data to demonstrate the conditions needed for humans to live well. (And if you’d rather listen to him talk about it than read it, I also appreciated his conversation with Adam Grant.)

On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World by Danya Ruttenberg.

I had a friend ask me the other day if it is possible to have forgiven someone and still be angry at them. I’ve wondered what it means to make things right with someone I’ve wronged and what it means for institutions to reckon with the harm done in the past. Danya Ruttenberg doesn’t answer every single one of those questions, but she does provide a really helpful framework for understanding why forgiveness can fall short of what we need in our relationships with one another and with our institutions. She spells out a process of, as the title suggests, the long, hard work of both repentance and repair. As she writes, “in a moral universe, there is work to be done whenever harm is inflicted.” She covers everything from a mean tweet to genocide in this comprehensive book that guides us toward transformation and healing.

Glimmerings by Miroslav Volf and Christian Wiman.

This beautiful, honest, thought-provoking book is so lovely. Miroslav Volf is a theologian and Christian Wiman a poet. They both teach at Yale Divinity School, and they talk about their faith and theological questions all the time. This collection of their letters to one another models how people of faith can help each other grow, comfort and challenge one another, and love one another well without coming to all the same conclusions. I slowed down while reading it because I wanted it to last longer.

ARTICLES/NEWS/ESSAYS

Essay: Elegy for Sammy Basso

I’m grateful to Rosemarie Garland-Thomson for reminding us in this essay of the humanity we share (and perhaps even discover) across perceived differences.

Essay: “Before I met my daughter Bree, I googled her”

I love this father’s wise words on the benefits and drawbacks of using the internet to understand our kids (in general, and our kids with disabilities):

She is physically and developmentally disabled. And she is, without exaggeration, the happiest person I have ever met. She tracks her sister’s voice across a room and kicks her legs so hard the bed frame shakes. Her joy doesn’t compute against the medical prognosis I built up in my head. It exceeds every container I tried to put her in.

The internet told me the wrong story about my daughter. Not wrong medically, but wrong philosophically. Wrong about what a life requires to count. Wrong about what’s possible when you stop measuring a person against a diagnosis and start seeing them as themselves.

Essay: “Don’t Call It ‘Intelligence’”

An essay about intelligence worthy of attention is Charles Yu’s recent essay for the Atlantic. He writes:

“What I’m most interested in is the “I” in AGI. What does it actually mean? And why have we let a small number of wealthy businesspeople define it?”

News: “Special Ed Enrollment Tops 8 Million Nationwide”

There are more kids registered for special education services than ever before, but fewer in the birth to two range who are receiving services. It’s unclear why this is so. As Disability Scoop reports: Typically, the Education Department includes special education enrollment data in its annual report to Congress, which is required under IDEA, but The Advocacy Institute notes that no report was issued in 2025.

Our family benefitted immensely from early intervention supports in the first few years of Penny’s life. If we want to serve families affected by disability well, and if we want to reduce the learning needs of kids with disabilities once they get to school age, we also want to ensure that young children with disabilities receive this type of support.

This is just one more example of why we need Congress to do its job, and why we need a functional Department of Education.

Podcast Episodes and Shows

Podcast Episode: Chris Beha on Why He Isn’t An Atheist Anymore

I loved this conversation about the role of skepticism in faith, different kinds of atheism, and why it might be worth it just to give Christianity a try.

Show: The Pitt.

(spoiler alert) I know I’ve already recommended The Pitt, but I wanted to bring up a new subplot that again does a good job of highlighting the lived experience of disability. Dr. King’s sister, Becca, who is autistic, comes into the ER with a urinary tract infection. It turns out she has been having sex—happily, consensually—with her boyfriend. Dr. King becomes agitated and upset when she hears this news. She can’t believe she didn’t know about it. At least some part of her wants to stop Becca. She wants to insist on talking with the boyfriend’s parents. But Becca says no, and because Mel (Dr. King) is not her guardian, she has no legal right to that information. It’s one storyline among many, but I appreciate it as a mom to a young adult as we also navigate the complexities of offering the right amount of support and honoring her abilities to make choices, make mistakes, and take risks.

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