Today is Black Friday, on my shortlist of candidates for the stupidest day of the year. Over the past few weeks I have needed on occasion to visit our local Lowe’s for bird food, leaf and lawn bags, and other autumn-related items. Since before Halloween, autumn leaf-control tools and accessories have been competing with mass quantities of the worst that commercial Christmas has to offer. Fake trees, gaudy and tasteless lawn decorations and tree ornaments have taken over the right... Read more
I have a Facebook acquaintance, a fellow graduate of St. John’s College, who posts five things she is thankful for every morning. I admire this and am always glad when I bump into her daily post on those mornings that I’m on Facebook as well. It is a practice that I have told myself many times that I need to develop, but have so far have failed to do. But as we approach the best holiday of the year, let... Read more
Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. Soren Kierkegaard One of my duties on campus this semester is as the co-chair of a national search for the person who, when hired, will be the second most important faculty member on campus, second only to the Provost. It’s a daunting assignment—I’ve told people that I’m essentially co-chairing the search for the person who will be my boss’s boss. The President and Provost told my co-chair and... Read more
I was saddened to hear this morning of the death of Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson at the age of 58. Gerson was a speechwriter for former President George W. Bush, including several memorable post-9/11 speeches. I often used a Gerson essay as the focus of a post on this blog. That includes an essay from November 2019–“Noah and His Children: Bad News for White Evangelical Christians”–which has become the most viewed post in the 10+ year history of this... Read more
It is mid-November; the leaves on the large oak tree in the yard diagonally behind us have fallen, 90% of them in our back yard. That means that this weekend, weather permitting, will be at least partially dedicated to back yard rather and trimming. Part of the trimming will involve our blackberry bush, a plant that has been both a blessing and a problem for several years. A number of years ago, Jeanne returned from a weekend with a friend... Read more
Yesterday was the final class in the “Race” unit in my General Ethics class; the reading assignment was George Yancy’s controversial 2015 essay “Dear White America.” If you have never read it, please take a few minutes and do so. https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/24/dear-white-america/?smid=pl-share As an ongoing writing assignment, each of my students is required to submit ten short reflections (500-600 words) on an upcoming assigned reading throughout the semester. Here is how this assignment is described in the course syllabus: These reflection... Read more
Although I estimate that at least 80-90 percent of the negative comments and pushback I get on my blog are from angry conservative evangelical Christians (I’ve been doing more blocking than usual over the past few weeks), I frequently get pushback from the other end of the spectrum–atheists who want either to know what evidence I have to justify believing in God’s existence or why I remain a person of faith when so many of my stated beliefs and perspectives... Read more
Last weekend I attended a student production of Macbeth on campus, the first such production I’ve attended since before the pandemic. Our performing arts center has a beautiful small theater; with Jeanne out of town for work, I purchased seat A1, front row at the center end. To be honest, if Jeanne had been along I probably would have purchased A1 and A2, since she if comfortable with sitting in the front row as well. I love Shakespeare. I got... Read more
The best argument in the world won’t change a person’s mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story. Richard Powers Richard Powers is one of my favorite novelists, perhaps the best living novelist that most people have either never heard of or haven’t read if they have heard of him. His latest novel is Bewilderment. I’m still not sure if I like it or not, but that’s not unusual for a Powers novel. He makes the reader... Read more
A conversation overheard as a bunch of guys at a sports bar wait for the big game to begin: “Dude, I’ve got one for you. There are these seven brothers named Aaron, Bill, Carl, Dave, Eric, Fred and George. Aaron’s the oldest one and he marries his high school girlfriend Paula. But he dies and Bill marries Paula because he thinks it’s the right thing to do.” “That’s kind of weird. Is Paula hot?” “What does that matter? “If I... Read more
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