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September 2022

September 18, 2022

How Many of Your Gods are Dead?

One of my greatest joys as a philosophy professor is that I get to be...

September 15, 2022

This Book Changed My Life: Kathleen Norris’ “The Cloister Walk”

I asked my Facebook friends at the beginning of the summer to list three or...

September 10, 2022

Remembering 9/11 and Becoming a Better Person

Everyone beyond a certain age can remember clearly what they were doing twenty-one years ago...

September 07, 2022

What Does the Bible Say about _____________?

In an interview with CNN a few years ago, Barbara Brown Taylor said something that...

September 05, 2022

What Does the Lord Require of Us? A Labor Day Reflection

There are a couple of sayings attributed to Jesus that Christians often use when attempting...

August 2022

August 30, 2022

It Is “The Best of Times” Once Again

Literary phrases for the beginning of a new academic year abound, such as Dickens' "It...

August 27, 2022

What the Wounds on Jesus’ Resurrected Body Tell Us

I consider myself to be well informed and well read, but every once in a...

August 14, 2022

“Whatever” is No Way to Live

Although I occasionally find myself immersed in things medieval with a bunch of freshmen in...

August 11, 2022

Jesus Taught Us How To Be Human

Jeanne asked me a question about my blog the other day that, after I stopped...

August 09, 2022

Remembering David McCullough and Why the Liberal Arts Matter More than Ever

I was saddened to hear that David McCullough, one of the great historians of his...

August 07, 2022

This Book Changed My Life: Marilynne Robinson’s “Gilead”

I asked my Facebook friends a while ago to list three or four books that...

July 2022

July 30, 2022

Some Crooked Things Don’t Need to be Made Straight

Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made. Immanuel Kant...

July 27, 2022

The Shy Deer-Soul Inside of You

As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O...

July 26, 2022

This Book Changed My Life: Annie Dillard’s “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”

We wake, if we ever wake at all, to mystery, rumors of death, beauty, violence....

July 18, 2022

Time, Like an Ever-Rolling Stream

I’ve been thinking a lot about end of life issues lately. Really. They seem to...

July 14, 2022

Some Things Repair Themselves, and Some Things Do Not

My recently concluded crappy month of June ended with a minor fender-bender, the result of...

July 11, 2022

My Neighbor May Not Be the Person I Think It Is

I recently found myself in the midst of a Facebook discussion, the sort of online...

July 09, 2022

What They Don’t Tell Us About Wisdom–Part Two

A couple of weeks ago I posted an essay called “What They Don’t Tell Us...

July 02, 2022

On Independence Day, Be Glad that the United States is Not a Christian Nation

Christianity, or any branch of it, loses its Christian character when its self-proclaimed supporters outnumber...

June 2022

June 25, 2022

Why Christians Should Care About Their Bodies

In last Thursday's blog post, I wrote about how the problematic philosophical theory of dualism...

June 23, 2022

Problems with the Soul

Last week I posted an essay called “Left-Brain Christianity or Right-Brain Faith?” which discussed the...

June 21, 2022

So You Want to be Free? Face your Demons

Iris Murdoch is one of my favorite philosophers and novelists, a writer whose work is...

June 11, 2022

The Spiritual Life of Crows

My childhood was filled with unusual characters, all products of my father’s fertile imagination. A...

June 03, 2022

Faith Needs Many Things, But It Doesn’t Need a Creed

One Sunday I decided to pay close attention to the words of the Nicene Creed...

May 2022

May 26, 2022

Swallowing the Mystery

In her wonderful memoir Take This Bread, Sara Miles tells us of a conversation she had...

May 23, 2022

The Story I am Willing to be Wrong About

My political scientist Dominican priest friend and colleague, who was my teaching partner in our...

May 21, 2022

Some Advice for the Graduating Seniors: Don’t Forget About the Room at the Back of your Shop

Today is Commencement Day for the Class of 2022 at my college. Commencement is always...

May 11, 2022

God is Not a Vending Machine

My most recent blog post included some reflections from a recent student on what she...

May 10, 2022

Saying Something Profound

Regular classes for the spring semester ended last Friday--semesters seem to go by more quickly...

April 2022

April 28, 2022

Organizing Books is My Charism

Last weekend, Jeanne and I took a quick trip to Greenville, South Carolina to attend...

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