Almost a year ago I began working with Dr. Martha MacCullough, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Cairn University to shape her manuscript on educational philosophy into a book. I learned a lot about the editing process, educational philosophy, page layout, and the awesome name pairings of educational scholars (seriously, “Chubb and Moe”? “Long and Frye”? “Bigge and Shermis”? I came to […]
The Gospel According to Eliot
This winter, I’m taking part in a virtual reading group hosted by Greener Trees. We’re going through the book The Art of T.S. Eliot, by Helen Gardner. I adore Eliot’s Four Quartets, so Gardner’s examination of Eliot’s work through the lens of that great work has been right up my alley. I was asked to write a guest post for […]
There’s a Drought in My Hymnal
This morning, on Facebook, I posted the following as a status update: So, I always feel a bit perturbed when we sing hymns of the early 20th Century in Church. It is not that I dislike singing hymns, just that I’ve never thought the first half of the 20th Century particularly fertile soil for hymn-writers. I think to myself, “There […]
Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes: Book Review
“Adventure ho!” reads the author’s inscription on the first page. Jonathan Auxier is a friend of a friend who lent me her signed copy of Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes for a read. Auxier wasn’t wrong. From the first page, Peter Nimble rollicks forward through adventure with barely a missed beat along the way. Peter Nimble is an orphan, […]
Serious Thoughts on Pie
I’ve been copying posts from my old Xanga blog to a document for safe keeping today and I came across this delightful post from 2004 which I feel the need to share again. My thoughts on pie remain adamantly so formed: Originally posted, Tuesday, November 23, 2004 I get to make pies tomorrow morning. On Sunday, my sister made […]
The Center Point
It often seems that my Advent meditations center around a single idea – often something meaningful to my reflections on the past year. Sometimes they’re painful meditations. Sometimes they are joyous. Sometimes they are revelations. Sometimes they’re old truths. This year’s meditations have focused the coming of the Christ as the center point of history. From creation to new creation, […]
The Real Battle
As I listened to The Hobbit on CD today on my drive, I was struck by Tolkien’s comments about Bilbo just before the hobbit sees Smaug for the first time. “Wisps of vapour floated up and past him and he began to sweat. A sound, too, began to throb in his ears, a sort of bubbling like the noise of a […]
The Blind Writer
I had a professor once who said, “The writer is the one who points and says, ‘Look.’” I’ve internalized that idea so deeply that I can no longer recall who said it – the words are now mine, and I repeat them from time to time when I’m called upon to say what it is I do – I point. […]
Starry Nite
The evening’s activities put me in mind of the event a year earlier. The tone both similar and worlds apart – a celebration of the start of the Christmas season, but this year without the aching heart and scratchy eyes of the day’s grief. As I walked away, the voices, amplified by microphones, echoed off the trees, the strains of the […]
It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for…
In the 1998-1999 school year at Plymouth-Canton Educational Park, more commonly called “PCEP” or just, “the Park,” my days as a high school senior were enlivened with a regular column in the PCEP Perspective student newspaper: “Ahmed’s Top 11,” written by my friend, Ahmed Baset. Recently home to visit my parents for Thanksgiving, I came across clippings of my favorite […]