For the next several Thursdays, I will be reposting my top blog posts of 2020, judged by the amount of traffic generated by each essay. Coming in at #5 on the list is an essay from last August in which I describe what happened when I posted a map on Facebook. Not just any map mind you. This map showed what North America would look like if several northeastern, northern midwest, and northwestern states currently in the United States of... Read more
One of my favorite skits from the early years of Saturday Night Live involved a situation that all of us are familiar with. A guest has overstayed his or her welcome and is completely oblivious to stronger and stronger suggestions from those whose house the visitor has crashed in that it’s time to call it a night and go home. In “The Thing That Wouldn’t Leave,” John Belushi is that guest, entirely unaware of and resistant to the efforts of... Read more
On New Year’s Day, I wrote that my New Year’s resolution this year is to take seriously how a ninety-year-old monk described me when he signed one of his many books of poetry for me: To Vance, a man who dreams but never wastes time. As I have thought about the challenge of being both a dreamer and a person who gets shit done, I have been taken back to texts both familiar and unfamiliar from the Jewish scriptures. The... Read more
In the beginning was the Word . . . and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. John 1:1, 14 “In the beginning . . .” ranks right up there with “Once upon a time . . .” as one of the best-of all-time intro line to a story. On this, the first Sunday of 2022, the gospel reading is John 1:1-18, a beautifully poetic introduction to the greatest story ever told. Because the language is poetic rather... Read more
There are few things that everyone can agree on these days, but here’s one: 2020 sucked. Big time. Two weeks before the end of the year, Rhode Island got hit with a Nor’easter, the most powerful and significant snowstorm to hit southern New England in a couple of years. I’m a native New Englander, and I don’t mind snow at all. I did not, however, appreciate what the storm did in the middle of the night to the gazebo that... Read more
A few days before Christmas, Jeanne and I were talking with a friend of hers from high school; they reconnected a year or so ago after losing track of each other for decades. Ronnie asked Jeanne and me “How old do you feel?” Jeanne answered that it ranged from mid-twenties to her real age, depending on the day, while I eventually landed on “about fifty.” All three of us know, of course, that we are in our middle sixties, but... Read more
Earlier this month, I posted an essay titled “It Isn’t True Just Because You Believe It” on this site, built around Friedrich Nietzsche’s observation that, despite most everyone’s claims to the contrary, “there is no immaculate perception.” In other words, my beliefs—even my most cherished ones and the ones I’m willing to go to virtual battle over—are not true simply because they are mine. Everyone’s beliefs and perceptions are influenced by their experiences and filtered through various preexisting assumptions and... Read more
Because of Covid-19, a less-than-smooth transition from one administration to another, and a general impatience for the worst calendar year in our lives to end, this Christmas season is more dissonant than most. During a conversation with a number of friends the other day I was reminded that the juxtaposition of promise and death, of expectation and suffering, is nothing new. This dissonance is built into the fabric of the stories that we tend to tell selectively and sanitize for... 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 as we finish a very difficult year, and hopefully await a much better one just around the corner. 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 . .... Read more
Grace means suddenly you’re in a different universe from the one where you were stuck, and there was absolutely no way for you get there on you own. Anne Lamott A few years ago, Jeanne surprised me for Father’s Day by taking me to a concert in Maryland by one of my favorite musicians. I discovered Fernando Ortega’s music three or four years ago after plugging the name of one of the few Christian artists I can stand into Pandora. After... Read more
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