The season of Epiphany, squeezed in between the Christmas season and Lent, is the annual liturgical celebration of Jesus’ coming out party. The gospel texts over the next few weeks will follow Jesus as he calls disciples, performs miracles, gets thrown out of his hometown synagogue for claiming to be the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy of the Messiah, and delivers the Sermon on the Mount. The gospel reading for the First Sunday of Epiphany is Matthew’s account of Jesus’ baptism... Read more
The college basketball season is in full swing. Although I have not posted about it recently, those who know me either in person or through this blog know that I am a college basketball fanatic, particularly for the Providence College Friars men’s basketball team. They had a season for the ages last year and are showing signs of having another memorable season this year. Last week on a Facebook site called “Friartown” that has several thousand members who are fellow... Read more
There are eight to ten movies that Jeanne and I watch religiously during the Christmas season, from the obvious (“It’s a Wonderful Life,” “White Christmas”) to a few that are not as well-known. Somehow this season we have failed so far to watch one of the lesser known films which might actually be my favorite–the 2006 French film “Joyeux Noel.” This film is a fictionalized account of the 1914 Christmas Truce that spontaneously occurred in numerous places along the battlefield... Read more
Every New Year’s Day for the past decade—the amount of time I have been writing this blog—I have posted something about hope for the New Year and suggested one or two things that I might commit to going forward that more or less looked like New Year’s resolutions. Last year I decided that my New Year’s resolution was to spend (waste) less time on social media; my practical step in that direction was to delete my Twitter account. It was... Read more
He who loves his life will lose it. John 12:25 I subscribe to two magazines, The New Yorker and The Atlantic. They pile up on the end table next to my side of the bed all semester–I generally start catching up on them in between semesters, often while riding on the stationary bike at the gym. The theme of the recently-arrived January 2023 The Atlantic is “Notes from the Apocalypse.” Given that I have participated in a team-taught colloquium called “Apocalypse” three times–including... Read more
This year Jeanne and I spent this year at home for Christmas for the first time in some time–we actually travelled despite Covid warning each of the last twoo Christmases. Amongst other things, we watched two versions of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, the classic 1951 version with Alastair Sim as Scrooge and George C. Scott starring in the 1982 rendition, my favorite of the many available. For each of last four academic years, I have had the privilege of team-teaching... Read more
Good people all, this Christmas time Consider well and bear in mind What our good God for us has done In sending his beloved son On this Christmas Day, I wish you the happiest of holidays. Here is a beautiful rendition of one of my favorite Christmas carols, the Irish “Wexford Carol.” Alison Krause, Yo-Yo Ma, a violin, bagpipes, percussion . . . it doesn’t get any better! Read more
A few years ago, I was asked to take on a temporary administrative position for the following semester in addition to my teaching duties. After agreeing to do so, my first step was to go on a fact-finding and listening tour, talking individually with the dozen or so people most knowledgeable concerning the issues I knew I would be grappling with. As I spent an hour or more with each of these colleagues, I found that it was often difficult... Read more
This has been an unusual Advent season. Advent is my favorite season in the liturgical calendar; it has been a decade-long tradition that I give the sermon on one of the four Advent Sundays at the Episcopal church I am involved with. For various reasons, though, I am on an open-ended sabbatical/hiatus from church—which has given me the opportunity, when I have chosen to take it, to think and feel carefully about a number of things that I have often... Read more
If you have been a regular reader of this blog for a while (there are a few of you out there), you may have noticed that most of what I have posted in the last three or four months is familiar. “I’ve read something like this before,” you might be saying. And you would be right. For a number of different reasons, the majority of essays I have posted over the past several weeks are do-overs, golden oldies with appropriate... Read more
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