The final week of the strangest academic semester of my life begins tomorrow. As I told a close friend and fellow academic on the phone last night, a friend who had the very good sense to be on sabbatical working on a book project during this challenging semester, I have told people for years of my happiness that I am old enough to never have to deal with teaching distance learning courses on line. And yet over the past several... Read more
“Now abide faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.” These words from the apostle Paul are heard at many, perhaps most, weddings. Everyone wants to believe that love is the greatest, especially on their wedding day. Faith seems to be part of my DNA—challenging it, trying to get rid of it, redefining it, being confused by it, and generally struggling with the “f-word” (as I call it in the classroom) has shaped me for as long... Read more
My youngest son was born in 1981 and grew up as Americans began, for the first time in my lifetime, to be aware of simple ways, such as recycling, that each of us can contribute to the health and maintenance of our planet. After a picnic at a Wyoming lake with his grandfather and me, my son (then about five years old) noticed that Grandpa had just thrown all of his garbage, including a couple of plastic containers, into the... Read more
I’ve written more than once in the last month about how the “Apocalypse” colloquium I am team-teaching with a friend and colleague from the English department this semester has become both strikingly and uncomfortably relevant to real life over the past month. So much so that we invited our students to consider keeping a “Coronavirus journal,” in which each could record and reflect on even small details of what it is like to be living through this pandemic sheltered in... Read more
Everyone beyond a certain age can remember clearly what they were doing eighteen-and-a-half years ago when they heard the news. I was in my college’s main cafeteria getting coffee and noticed something weird happening on the Today Show broadcast on a television hanging from the ceiling in the corner. At that point all they knew was that one of the Twin Towers was on fire, apparently because an airplane had crashed into it. I had scheduled office hours that morning, so... Read more
The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty Anne Lamott We are currently living in a time of uncertainty. I am 64 years old, grew up as the Vietnam War raged and the Civil Rights movement changed our nation, a time in which domestic unrest, violence, and assassination were normal events. More recently, I remember 9/11, the towers falling, and the changed country and world that followed. But I have never experienced or observed the sort of uncertainty that... Read more
During his Easter Sunday homily last year, my friend Mitch—the rector of the Episcopal church I attend—told the story of Gladys, a life-long pillar of her Congregational church, one of only three churches within a seventy-mile radius in her area of the rural Midwest; the other two were Lutheran and Roman Catholic. One fateful Easter morning, Gladys arrived with her three children in tow, ready for Easter festivities. The homily was given by young man who, according to Gladys, was... Read more
Several years ago, just in time for the Christmas holiday season, a new book by Sarah Palin was published. Entitled Good Tidings and Great Joy, with the subtitle A Happy Holiday IS a Merry Christmas, the book was promoted, among other things, as “a fun, festive, thought-provoking book, which will encourage all to see what is possible when we unite in defense of our faith and ignore the politically correct Scrooges who would rather take Christ out of Christmas.” Every fall in recent... 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
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