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April 2023

April 13, 2023

Jesus, Death, and Taxes

Thanks to the calendar, we get three extra days to file our taxes this year...

March 2023

March 30, 2023

Lifting the Fog from Faith

What we call doubt is often simply dullness of mind and spirit, not the absence...

March 12, 2023

How to Educate a Story-Telling Animal

Man is in his actions and practices, as well as in his fictions, essentially a...

March 07, 2023

Living with “Moment Faith”

After spending six and a half decades in the middle of this faith thing, one...

February 2023

February 22, 2023

A Tale of Ash Wednesday and Lent

One Wednesday last winter, the student in front of me in line at the little...

February 21, 2023

A More Interesting God through Evolution

It is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for a [non-Christian] to hear a Christian, supposedly...

February 09, 2023

Why I am Triggered by Trigger Warnings

I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of the peace....

January 2023

January 26, 2023

Deciding Whom You Belong To

Five years ago, my college celebrated its centennial. For Jeanne and me, the highlight of...

January 24, 2023

We are to be God in the World

This coming Sunday's gospel reading is the Beatitudes from Matthew, the opening lines from the...

January 17, 2023

The Spirit of the Lord is Upon Me . . .

Spring semester classes start today. One of my courses is a team-taught colloquium with a...

January 05, 2023

Mediocrates Returns with Some Additional Wisdom

The college basketball season is in full swing. Although I have not posted about it...

January 01, 2023

Hope in Unexpected Form—A New Year’s Day Reflection

Every New Year’s Day for the past decade—the amount of time I have been writing...

December 2022

December 10, 2022

Things are Getting Real: A Conversation Between Jesus and John the Baptist

In a second season episode of “The Chosen,” a multi-year cinematic treatment of the life...

November 2022

November 19, 2022

Living Life Forwards and Understanding it Backwards

Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. Soren Kierkegaard One...

November 15, 2022

“Dear White America”: A Young Woman Reflects on her Inherent Racism

Yesterday was the final class in the “Race” unit in my General Ethics class; the...

October 2022

October 29, 2022

How to Make Certain Christians Very Angry

In the ten-plus years of this blog’s existence, I have made any number of Christians...

October 25, 2022

Karl Marx and Jesus Walk into a Bar . . .

We should read the New Testament as saying that how we treat each other on...

October 18, 2022

How is your Optimism Doing These Days?

A few weeks ago in the interdisciplinary Honors course that I am team-teaching in this...

October 16, 2022

Mapping Ghosts and Believing Things that Aren’t True

Over the years that I have been writing this blog, those who describe themselves as...

October 11, 2022

If You Meet a Stranger and If He’s Hungry, Feed Him

Yesterday was Columbus Day. Correction, it was Indigenous Peoples Day. This is not energized by...

September 2022

September 01, 2022

Abortion and Faith Discussions: Begin How You Want It To End

I wrote this essay while I was on retreat in early July but, for reasons...

August 2022

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...

May 2022

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...

April 2022

April 26, 2022

The Wisdom of Socrates’ Younger Brother–Mediocrates

A Facebook friend who knows that I am a philosophy professor sent me a thought-provoking...

March 2022

March 26, 2022

On the Days when I Believe . . .

After spending six and a half decades in the middle of this faith thing, one...

March 20, 2022

The Will of God: How to Know It?

Midterm grades are due on my campus by midnight Wednesday; last Wednesday was the official...

March 19, 2022

Hanging Out with the World’s Most Interesting Man

His words carry weight that would break a less interesting man’s jaw Every once in...

March 12, 2022

Is a Ukrainian Life Worth Higher Gas Prices?

A regular reader of my blog asked the other day whether I might want to...

February 2022

February 22, 2022

Faith and Insecurity

Have you never felt like one of those pawns forgotten in a corner of the...

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