When I arrived at college, my whole high school basketball experience had been one long frustration. I swore to myself that I would everyone in my past wrong by making the team at my college. I did the team’s weight training program, played “fall ball” with the players, and got to know some of them. When it came time for tryouts, however, nothing went right. Well, that’s not quite true. On the third day of the three-day sessions, I torched... Read more

I don’t know exactly when I made the switch to basketball. The 90s, the formative years of my adolescence, witnessed the explosion of basketball, however, so it makes some sense that a sports-loving kid enjoyed it. Basketball was and is a huge part of the youth culture. It was far more exciting than baseball and less complicated to play, and I easily made the switch when I was young. My family didn’t have a hoop or a tarred driveway, so... Read more

It’s about time for a series of essays. I want to write on a topic that has long been close to my heart: basketball. Those who know me well know that I’ve long loved this game. Over the next few days, I want to try and write a few meaningful thoughts on my love affair with roundball, which begins with my love for baseball. What one finds in such an exercise is that the story ends up not so much... Read more

I’ve been reading Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson’s Raising Cain recently. The book was written in 2000 by these child psychologists, one of whom, Kindlon, is a faculty member at Harvard. As I read the stories and insights these two men share throughout the book, I noted a few things. First, the spurious character of much psychological thought. Psychology is a strange blend of physiology, sociology, and common sense reflection. I think it certainly gets some things right and helps... Read more

As I write this brief blog, please know that I do not in any way fancy myself a literature expert, and for good reason. I aspire to be a professional historian, but I cannot claim any great understanding of literature. I do, however, know what I enjoy, and so I offer these thoughts as just that: my thoughts. Good Christian literature will tell a good story. Too often, Christian authors over-spiritualize and over-allegorize their stories. They think that in order... Read more

I was pulled a bit away from the topic of literature in my last post. Those who read this blog know that I believe that all virtuous vocations are honoring to God and equipped to bring Him glory. My focus this week is not on work more generally, but on the specific need for excellent Christian literature. If you are a parent of a literate child, or if you are the friend of a talented collegiate writer, do us all... Read more

Flannery O’Connor I have never read, but in the paraphrased words of Owen Wilson in the immortal film Zoolander, “I respect her. She’s written books, and I’ve never read them, but I really respect that.” Chesterton is also an excellent example for yesterday’s post. On a more serious note, I would like to focus the discussion on Lewis, simply because of the gospel-oriented impact he had. Revivalism and fundamentalism (which I will soon be blogging on) had some strong points,... Read more

Think about this: sixty years ago, the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis were affecting hundreds of thousands of people. Now this: noone today has a similar effect in the literary world. That’s a sad reality. Of course, I’m not positing Tolkien as an evangelical believer (he was Roman Catholic), and Lewis made his share of theological mistakes. However, the writings of these two men represent the capturing of the Christian worldview by the printed word.... Read more

I’ve noticed a couple of articles recently that touched on a topic I’ve written about before: feminist conceptions of motherhood. The Boston Globe recently published a piece in which a mother who had returned to the workplace after four years away to care for her children celebrated her career due to its lack of messiness, its ease, and its relative solitude. A New York Times article chronicled the efforts of mothers to fight for better workplace benefits. Both caught my... Read more

I’m not one to talk much about spiritual warfare. In a practical sense, I don’t think the Bible emphasizes it a great deal–at least it doesn’t specify the parameters of the war that rages around us. We of course know that there is a great conflict between light and dark here, but we know little of it’s actual shape. I’ve been reflecting a bit on yesterday’s post, though, and I can say that I do think that one of the... Read more