Why the Liberal Arts Matter

Last updated on: November 7, 2021 at 1:40 pm By Vance Morgan

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winning historian David McCullough was the speaker at Providence College’s Commencement exercises last Sunday. His presence reminded me of when I met McCullough (I tried not to be too much of a groupie) four and a half years ago. In October 2013, McCullough was the invited keynote speaker at the dedication of our beautiful new Ruane Center for the Humanities; in an education world in which institutions of higher education are marginalizing, downsizing, and even occasionally eliminating... Read more

Pentecost and Graduation Day

Last updated on: May 12, 2018 at 3:02 pm By Vance Morgan

Today is my college’s Commencement–it is also Pentecost Sunday. In keeping with my attraction to trying to find something interesting in seemingly random occurrences, I’m wondering what connections might be found beneath the surface of these two annual, by unrelated events. As it turns out, it’s all about how one thinks. When my sons were young, one of the most important distinctions in their estimation, when food was the issue, was “is it fast or slow food?” In other words,... Read more

We Need to Stop Saying “Our Thoughts and Prayers are With You.” It Doesn’t Help.

Last updated on: May 19, 2018 at 6:49 am By Vance Morgan

So here we are again. Another school shooting, immediately followed by another avalanche of “our thoughts and prayers are with you” aimed toward the families of the victims, including by the President shortly after yesterday’s school shooting in Texas. Two and half years ago, just after the deadly shooting in San Bernardino, so many mass shootings ago that it is difficult to remember the details, in frustration I posted the following on Facebook: I’m tired–really tired–of hearing people say and... Read more

A Prayer for Graduates on Commencement Weekend

Last updated on: May 18, 2018 at 11:26 am By Vance Morgan

May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart. May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people. May God bless you with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all... Read more

Is Israel in the West? and other questions from the classroom

Last updated on: May 16, 2018 at 6:16 pm By Vance Morgan

Swirling around the dedication of the new United States embassy in Jerusalem this week have been political, social, and religious issues that are both definitive and complex beyond imagination. Many of the matters raised require us to think long and hard about how we define ourselves and each other. Which happens to be precisely one of the important matters in a course that I teach regularly. This week’s event could have been the organizing idea for a syllabus in that... Read more

Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

Last updated on: May 12, 2018 at 12:52 pm By Vance Morgan

Hello darkness, my old friend, I’ve come to talk to you again. “The Sound of Silence” One Sunday not long ago as I was listening to our local NPR station in the car during an errand run, I heard a brief piece about “Disturbed,” a heavy metal band that had just received its second Grammy nomination. Their first was in 2009; now, eight years later, they had another one. My knowledge of contemporary heavy metal is non-existent, as is my interest... Read more

Her Children Rise Up and Call Her Blessed

Last updated on: May 13, 2018 at 8:07 am By Vance Morgan

I once learned something interesting about giraffes from one of my colleagues. He was lecturing on Roman art and architecture; when discussing the Coliseum, he mentioned that Roman audiences loved to watch novelty battles—between a woman and a dwarf, or a dog and a porcupine for instance. The voracious Roman appetite for more and more exotic beasts and contests produced a variety of combatants from all corners of the empire, including elephants, apes, the great cats, and rhinoceroses. And giraffes.... Read more

The Crooked Timber of Faith

Last updated on: May 10, 2018 at 6:36 am By Vance Morgan

Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made. Immanuel Kant I love many kinds of music, but classical music is my first love. I was classically trained on the piano from age four through high school; my first piano teacher, a Julliard graduate who somehow ended up in northern Vermont teaching piano, was also the organist for the North Country Chorus, a volunteer choral group that was, in the estimation of Vermonters at the time,... Read more

The Lord Be With You . . .

Last updated on: May 7, 2018 at 8:13 pm By Vance Morgan

What is the best way to get the attention of a bunch of Episcopalians? I learned the answer to this question well over thirty years ago when, after my first Sunday morning Episcopal worship service, I found myself downstairs in what they called the “undercroft” for coffee hour. There were at least fifty people gathered, eating pastries, drinking coffee, some smoking cigarettes (of all things)–the noise of conversation was deafening. Then the Dean of the cathedral entered the room and... Read more

What Christians Get Wrong About Jesus

Last updated on: May 10, 2018 at 4:23 pm By Vance Morgan

Historical Christianity has fallen into the error that corrupts all attempts to communicate religion . . . It has dwelt, it dwells, with noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus. Ralph Waldo Emerson On July 5, 1838, in the middle of what he called “this refulgent summer,” during which “it has been a luxury to draw the breath of life,” thirty-five-year-old Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered what has come to be known as his “Divinity School Address” to the graduating class of the... Read more