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July 2024

July 21, 2024

Okay, fine. I’m a heretic.

I've spent significant time over the past fourteen or fifteen months immersed in the Bible....

July 19, 2024

On its way to the publisher!

On Monday I will be sending the final manuscript of A Year of Faith and Philosophy:...

June 2024

June 20, 2024

Not Long Ago. Not Far Away

Jeanne and I went to the Auschwitz exhibition in Boston yesterday--it's there for the rest...

June 18, 2024

Feeding the Hungry Stranger

In the honors interdisciplinary program I teach in, my colleagues and I have chosen over...

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 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 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 02, 2024

Big News, and a Blast from the Past!

First, some big news! Yesterday I signed a contract for my book A Year of...

April 2024

April 19, 2024

Healing Begins with Listening

It occurred to me a couple of days ago that the spring semester is ending...

April 17, 2024

What are God’s Pronouns?

RMy baseline criterion for whether a particular class has gone well is to answer the...

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 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 03, 2024

Faith on Three Wheels

Next week is my birthday week, an annual opportunity for me to consider how old...

February 2024

February 29, 2024

Being a Person of Faith in Challenging Times

This has been a challenging week in class, not because of my students but because...

February 22, 2024

Did Jesus Misread Human Nature?

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

February 18, 2024

Who Would Jesus Bomb? A President’s Day Reflection

Tomorrow is President's Day, which for all college professors means--as do all Monday holidays in...

February 15, 2024

A Terrible Beauty

The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper. I cannot quite make...

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 01, 2024

Is Religion a Virus?

The last time I was a member of a search committee for a new tenure...

January 2024

January 28, 2024

Enneagrams, Personality Tests, and the Virtues of Elitism

A bit over a year ago at my brother-in-law’s wake, I spent several minutes chatting...

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 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 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...

December 2023

December 10, 2023

An Outline of “Nice Work If You Can Get It”

I am currently starting the process of finding a literary agent for the teaching memoir...

December 08, 2023

No Perception is Immaculate

I have taught philosophy in Catholic higher education for more that thirty years as a...

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