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June 2024

June 16, 2024

The Good Samaritan

Today is the Fifth Sunday after Easter in the lectionary, including a number of familiar...

June 04, 2024

Some Thoughts on Self-Repair

Two years ago this week I had a fall riding my bike that resulted in,...

June 02, 2024

We are Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

We are all patchwork, and so shapeless and diverse in composition that each bit, each...

May 2024

May 23, 2024

Consider the Lilies . . .

I am working my way through my book A Year of Faith and Philosophy making revisions,...

May 21, 2024

Some Random Thoughts As We Enter Summer

Even though summer doesn’t officially begin for another month or so, for a college professor...

May 14, 2024

Perfection or Slight Improvement?

As I begin work on the final version of my forthcoming book A Year of...

May 06, 2024

When Life Feels Like an Afterthought . . .

Today's "golden oldie" was first posted here in early 2013, just a few months after...

May 04, 2024

Weaponizing the Bible

The final meeting of my honors colloquium on Michel de Montaigne was last Thursday. It...

April 2024

April 30, 2024

The Word is a Person

In the beginning was the Word . . . and the Word was made flesh,...

April 23, 2024

Of Betta Fish and Forgiveness

One day several years ago, Jeanne said “I want a fish.” This was a rather...

April 11, 2024

Writing and Living Bird by Bird

The list of authors whose work has been most influential on my spiritual growth over...

April 09, 2024

Fast and Slow in the Life of Faith

I learned a couple of days ago on "Hidden Brain," one of my favorite podcasts,...

April 07, 2024

Thomas, Michel, and the Importance of Doubt

Jeanne and I spent Thursday through Saturday of Holy Week in a movie theater. We...

March 2024

March 31, 2024

I See You: An Easter Reflection

Easter Sunday--the most triumphant day on the Christian liturgical calendar. According to New Testament scholar...

March 28, 2024

Could You Not Watch With Me One Hour?

HOly WeekSome people can sleep anywhere. One of those people was a student in one...

March 26, 2024

God Finds Us to be Infinitely Interesting

April is going to be Marilynne Robinson month for me. In the team taught interdisciplinary...

March 19, 2024

On Being a Person

In her award-winning trilogy of novels about Thomas Cromwell, the consigliere and fixer for Henry...

March 14, 2024

Eating Your Words. Literally.

Truth isn’t sympathetic to our need for certainty or stability. Jared Enns, “The Bible for...

February 2024

February 27, 2024

God, Your Boss at Applebee’s, and Larry

An alternative title for this essay might be “A Comedian Interprets the Parable of the...

February 22, 2024

Did Jesus Misread Human Nature?

The Gospel reading for last Sunday, the First Sunday of Lent, is the account of...

February 06, 2024

Who Am I? How to Build a Person

In one of the essays assigned for my honors colloquium on Michel de Montaigne this...

February 04, 2024

Can We Trust Each Other? A Reflection on Human Nature

The other day upon returning from her early morning visit to the gym, the first...

January 2024

January 25, 2024

God Isn’t Angry At Us

A former student who wrote for our campus student newspaper once asked me during an...

January 23, 2024

What Exactly is a Freelance Christian?

I have been told on occasion by readers of this blog that "Freelance Christianity" is...

January 16, 2024

Now It Begins: The First Day of the New Semester

In last few minutes of Franco Zefferelli's Jesus of Nazareth, Zerah pokes his head into the...

January 14, 2024

How Solitude Can Lead to God

The building looked like the love child of a logic problem and a crossword puzzle....

January 11, 2024

A Theology of the Compost Pile

In his 2014 book The Bible Tells Me So . . .” and The Sin...

January 09, 2024

This I Believe–and that’s not a good thing

A number of years ago, at the end of a presentation to fellow resident scholars...

January 04, 2024

Why January 6th is Important

Three years ago this coming Saturday, I was sitting in the recliner in our little...

January 02, 2024

Continuing the Task of Self-Construction in the New Year

My first post of the New Year on this blog often goes in the direction...

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