In one of the essays assigned for my honors colloquium on Michel de Montaigne this past week, Montaigne writes in some detail about his faulty memory. There is no man who has less business talking about memory. For I recognize almost no trace of it in me, and I do not think there is another one in the world so monstrously deficient . . . It is not unreasonably said that anyone who does not feel sufficiently strong in memory... Read more
The other day upon returning from her early morning visit to the gym, the first thing Jeanne said was “I was listening to an episode of ‘Throughline’ on the radio that you will love! It’s all about the problem of evil—they were just starting to talk about Hobbes when I got home!” Not many people’s spouses get excited about conversations that focus on 17th century English philosophers, but she knows me well. We listened to the podcast together later the... Read more
The last time I was a member of a search committee for a new tenure track faculty member in my department, I found the response to the college’s mission statement (required of all semifinalist candidates) to be particularly interesting. The candidate wrote that “A dear friend and colleague with whom I shared an office for many years once confided in me that he could hardly believe that I was really religious, for I seemed like such a reasonable man. ‘And... Read more
In my last post I wrote about being comfortable in my own skin as an introvert. I was reminded while writing that being comfortable in my own skin is a relatively new phenomenon in my life. I remember clearly when while away from home on sabbatical fifteen years days ago Jeanne told me during our daily phone call about a conversation with a mutual close friend that she had on the phone a couple of days earlier. “How is Vance... Read more
A bit over a year ago at my brother-in-law’s wake, I spent several minutes chatting with my niece-in-law Danielle’s husband Matt (which I guess makes Matt my nephew-in-law-in-law–Danielle and Matt are expecting their first child in a few weeks). He was sitting quietly in a seat in the back row of chairs while just about everyone else was working the room. It struck me that sitting quietly with Matt was a good idea. We often gravitate toward each other whenever... Read more
A former student who wrote for our campus student newspaper once asked me during an interview for the paper what, after many years of teaching introductory ethics courses, would be my one-sentence summary of the moral life. As I described in a post a few months ago, my immediate response was “Don’t Be A Dick,” quickly changed to “Don’t Be A Jerk.” The Moral Life in One Sentence This past week as I scrolled through my Facebook feed (I do... Read more
I have been told on occasion by readers of this blog that “Freelance Christianity” is an oxymoron. I don’t bother to tell such folks that the other contender for the name of this blog over a decade ago was “Agnostic Christianity” (which fortunately Jeanne talked me out of). Recently, though, a commenter who seemed sincere asked me to explain what the difference between freelance and traditional Christianity might be. My sense was that his question was not a bait-and-switch effort... Read more
When I first started this blog a bit over eleven years ago, I told Jeanne that I would continue doing it until it became “just another damn thing I have to do.” There have been times that I came very close to that point, but then something–a comment from a reader, an unexpeted insight from an author I am reading–keeps me going. I’ve often said and written that this blog is a form of spiritual exercise for me, that its... Read more
Last Sunday’s lectionary reading from the Hebrew Scriptures is the story of God’s call of the young boy Samuel from First Samuel. Samuel was one of my role models as a child, because as a child he was perceptive enough to be able to hear the voice of the divine calling him when the grownups couldn’t hear a thing. But this is the second half of the story. The first half of the story is a tale with many familiar... Read more
In last few minutes of Franco Zefferelli’s Jesus of Nazareth, Zerah pokes his head into the tomb where he observed the dead Jesus of Nazareth being buried three days earlier. Zerah is a politically astute, power-hungry Pharisee who has been an enemy of Jesus since he first heard about the roving rabbi three years earlier. Zerah is the one who manipulates Judas into betraying Jesus. Zerah is the one who convinces the Romans to put a beefed-up military presence in front... Read more
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