There is a saying attributed to Saint Francis that I have heard frequently in more than three decades as a non-Catholic professor in Catholic higher education: Preach the Gospel—use words if necessary. If you google the statement, the items at the top of the search results are mostly attempts to establish that despite the popularity of the attribution, Francis never said this. Not only did he not say it, some deniers argue, it would be misleading and problematic if he... Read more
The central theme of my ethics class last fall was human dignity. Through short stories, excerpts from novels and plays, and philosophical articles we explored the reasons why we believe that human beings, simply by virtue of being human beings, are morally set apart from everything else. This is a high stakes issue, since our commitment to universal human rights and equal treatment of all human beings, despite our obvious differences, is built on our claim that a human being’s... Read more
Our seven-month old corgi Bovina, one of the greatest joys of Jeanne’s and my life, has developed a routine for greeting the sun as it peeks its head over our back fence each morning. The first morning rays reflect off our back storm door; if someone moves the door back and forth, the reflection moves along the side and back fence. Everyone rises before the sun gets up at our house—Bovina immediately insists on going into the back yard and... Read more
A thing about dying is that you can’t consult anyone who has done it. Peter Schjeldahl A friend who was the junior warden at Trinity Episcopal Church where Jeanne and I worship died last week after an extended battle with cancer. His funeral mass was this past Monday. Don was in his seventies and had been a member of the church since his youth. Needless to say, he was a fixture. At the end of the liturgy, as Don’s casket... Read more
Several Christmas Eves ago, Jeanne, Justin and I were invited to share dinner with a friend from work and her family, which includes two precocious and very active children. On display was a beautiful crèche, surrounded by all sorts of interesting items—who knew, for instance, that there was a duck and an elephant (both roughly the same size as the baby) at the manger? My friend is from Italy; her mother annually sends new additions to the crèche scene from... Read more
Some people can sleep anywhere. One of those people was a student in one of my seminars a few semesters ago. Bob (his name has been changed to protect the innocent) was a bright but apparently less-than-motivated student whose verbal work, such as participation in seminar, vastly exceeded his written or objective work, such as reading quizzes and the midterm exam. He’s one of those students who always had something to say that is relevant and insightful, carefully crafted to... Read more
A bit over a decade ago, I spent spent the early months of the year on sabbatical on the campus of a Benedictine college in Minnesota. Lining the road on the fifteen minute uphill walk from my Ecumenical Institute apartment to St. John’s Abbey in the depths of winter were any number of leafless trees, 10-12 feet tall. Judging from their shapes and sizes, I guessed that many of them were the flowering sorts of trees that are always the... Read more
What is bothering me incessantly is the question of what Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is, for us today. The time when people could be told everything by means of words, whether theological or pious, is over—and that means the time of religion in general. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters from Prison A few years ago, after a week at work that completely wore me out, I was strongly tempted to skip church on Sunday morning for the first... Read more
I have no idea why or how Miss Katrina Munn, a graduate of Julliard School of Music with a degree in organ performance, came to spend most of her adult life teaching piano to kids in central, rural Vermont. She was my first piano teacher, from age five (or was it four?) until age eleven. I spent forty-five minutes per week with her in the piano studio attached to her small apartment. While many of her students found her intimidating, she... Read more
It seems that just about everyone I know is playing “Wordle” every day. I asked my class of 33 honors students yesterday how many of them are playing Wordle—30 hands went up. If you are one of the few human beings who doesn’t know what Wordle is, it’s a game both simple and addictive. Each day you get six chances to guess a five-letter word. After each guess, A gray square means the letter is not in the word of... Read more
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