All this thinking is highly overrated. Violet, Dowager Countess of Downton Abbey As “Downton Abbey” continues through its sixth and final season here in the States, here are some thoughts from a few months ago from everyone’s favorite character . . . The American showing of Masterpiece Theater’s Downton Abbey’s fifth season just ended, to the dismay of its millions of fans who now must wait until next January to get their next Downton fix. It’s a bit worse for... Read more
As those who love Masterpiece Theater and great television know, “Downton Abbey” is in the middle of its sixth and final season on Sunday nights here in the U. S. I’ve written frequently about what I’ve learned from this show–here’s a post about my favorite Downton character from a bit over a year ago . . . In anticipation of Season Five of “Downton Abbey” making it across the pond to PBS next month, Jeanne and I just finished... Read more
As is the case with any profession, the life of an academic includes some great and some not-so-great features. After twenty-five years of being a college professor, here’s a brief list: Great: • Sabbatical • Being in the classroom • Team-teaching with colleagues • Planning courses • Writing • Beer with fellow teachers on Friday afternoons Not So Much: • Grading • Being in a dysfunctional department • Trying to get what you have written published • Technology in the classroom... Read more
Although it often caused trouble and brought me grief during my primary and secondary education years, I have never tried very hard to hide my serious geekiness. Accordingly, I start today’s blog post with the ancient Greek lyric poet Pindar. I need to be careful here, because I have four colleagues and friends on campus who are trained classicists—for all I know, one of them might have written their dissertation on Pindar. Many of Pindar’s surviving poems are “victory odes,”... Read more
An annual musical fixture of my Baptist upbringing was the Easter Cantata. Each year on Easter evening our small choir would perform a contemporary setting of the Passion and Easter story from Last Supper through the Resurrection. My aunt Gloria was the choir director, several of my relatives sang in the choir from my pre-teen years on, and from about age twelve through high school I was the piano accompanist for this annual event. We weren’t that good and the... Read more
In anticipation of what is likely to be our first real snow of the winter tonight and tomorrow, I’m remembering a visit from a very nasty lady exactly a year ago . . . My usual reaction as a seasoned New Englander to panicked reports of the next big “Snowpocalypse” event coming our way is “whatever.” So when I heard on the local NPR weather update last Saturday as it snowed a couple of sloppy inches that a “MAJOR SNOW... Read more
This is the point in the semester where teachers start returning the first graded assignments to students and students start having a fit. A bit over a year ago I wrote about one of these exchanges that was particularly satisfying . . . An uneducated person accuses others when he is doing badly. Epictetus We have all had the experience of only realizing after the fact what we should have said in real time. This happens to teachers frequently—you want to... Read more
I spend a lot of time thinking and writing about God. That’s a strange thing to spend time doing, given that the very existence of God, and God’s nature if God does exist, has been seriously and vigorously debated since someone first looked into the sky and wondered if anything is out there. What sorts of evidence count for or against? Is certainty possible? And if God exists, which God are we talking about? I am a skeptic both by... Read more
But understand this, that in the last days terrible times will come. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. II Timothy 3:1-5 The other day as I listened to NPR as is my custom when... Read more
Anyone who knows me or who reads this blog even occasionally knows that I am a sports fan in the true sense of the word’s etymology— “fanatic.” My fanaticism is focused and selective. I pay no attention to the NBA unless the Boston Celtics make a deep run in the playoffs (something that hasn’t happened for a few years). My interest in the NHL is similarly connected to whether the Bruins are in the playoffs. My obsessions, in ascending order... Read more
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