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July 2025

July 29, 2025

God is Non-Binary

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

April 2024

April 17, 2024

What are God’s Pronouns?

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

December 2021

December 17, 2021

“For Unto Us”: An Afternoon with Handel’s Messiah

The soundtrack of my youth is classical music. I was classically trained on the piano...

August 2020

August 21, 2020

The Big Sister I Always Wanted: Remembering Marsue

Every once in a while, our lives are blessed with a person who uniquely and...

July 2020

July 23, 2020

I’ll See It When I Believe It

When we first moved to Rhode Island in the middle 1990s for my new teaching...

July 03, 2020

“There Shall be None to Make Him Afraid”–An Independence Day Reflection

Every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig-tree, and there shall...

April 2019

April 10, 2019

Remembering What Matters Most

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

March 2019

March 13, 2019

My Love/Hate Relationship with the Fourth Member of the Trinity

Twenty-five years ago last month, I interviewed at Providence College for a tenure-track position in...

August 2018

August 09, 2018

To Live In Safety and Without Fear

Every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig-tree, and there shall...

July 2018

July 24, 2018

What I Learned About My Faith When I Visited Cuba

Fifteen years ago, I was part of a group of a dozen or so academics...

April 2018

April 19, 2018

A Liberal and a Christian Walk Into a Bar . . .

Not long ago, The Atlantic published an article by Emma Green entitled “Democrats Have a...

April 11, 2017

Flowering Trees

At the beginning of the first Holy Week, Jesus killed a fig tree for no...

December 2016

December 16, 2016

I Will Bring You Home

Baptist preacher's kids get to do some very odd things. I memorized large portions of...

July 2016

July 18, 2016

Random Midsummer Thoughts

After the most beautiful Rhode Island June--sunny and low eighties day after day--in my twenty-two...

April 2016

April 07, 2016

Adepto Ex Meus Visio

Jeanne and I are headed to Florida this evening to spend a week with family...

March 2016

March 20, 2016

Blessed Is He Who Comes

Rodney Delasanta was one of best teachers and colleagues I ever had the privilege of...

January 2016

January 22, 2016

Hanging Out With Juno

In anticipation of what is likely to be our first real snow of the winter...

November 2015

November 30, 2015

Too Soon

Just before Thanksgiving a year ago a wonderful colleague and friend from my college died...

November 18, 2015

Jesus is Riding a Dinosaur, and other observations

The next time someone says something like “These are $130 headphones that I bought for...

November 06, 2015

A Green Mountain Boy

The candidacy of Senator Bernie Sanders for the Democratic Party nomination for President over the...

October 2015

October 16, 2015

Big Brother

In the 1946 classic film “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Angel Second Class Clarence Oddbody is...

October 07, 2015

Confessions of an Ocean-Hater

As I'm reviewing various posts for a current large writing project, I came across a...

June 2015

June 19, 2015

Border Crossing

As a youth growing up in northeastern Vermont, a trip to Canada was pretty much...

April 2015

April 20, 2015

The Vision Thing

In 1987, as Vice President George H. W. Bush prepared to step out of Ronald...

April 17, 2015

We Are the Champions!

I admit it—hockey has never been my number one sport. That in itself is odd,...

December 2014

December 10, 2014

Loving Your Life

I recently finished re-reading Stephanie Saldana’s 2010 book The Bread of Angels, a book that...

August 2014

August 27, 2014

In Praise of Snobbery

Last July, in the middle of an interminable stretch of high-90s heat (very unusual for...

June 2014

June 13, 2014

A Southern Belle in the Deep North

When we left the Bag last week, she was sitting between the captain’s chairs of...

June 13, 2014

A Southern Belle in the Deep North

When we left The Bag last week, she was sitting between the captain’s chairs of a...

October 2013

October 07, 2013

All Things are Become New

Last Saturday was the official dedication of the beautiful new humanities building on my campus....

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