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September 2022
September 07, 2022
What Does the Bible Say about _____________?
In an interview with CNN a few years ago, Barbara Brown Taylor said something that...
August 2022
August 20, 2022
Something More Powerful than Our Virtues
One of the habits that having a puppy in the house for the past ten...
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 07, 2022
Descending and Ascending the Mountain of the Lord
Facebook reminded me that eight years ago I was on retreat at the New Camoldoli...
May 2022
May 26, 2022
In her wonderful memoir Take This Bread, Sara Miles tells us of a conversation she had...
May 11, 2022
My most recent blog post included some reflections from a recent student on what she...
April 2022
April 16, 2022
Taking Death for a Walk: A Holy Saturday Reflection
A thing about dying is that you can't consult anyone who has done it. Peter...
April 02, 2022
Martha or Mary? Type A or Type not-A?
The stereotype of the Type A personality has become an entrenched part of cultural lore....
March 2022
March 23, 2022
Have Yourself an Introspective Day
In our three years in Milwaukee, our first years together as a married couple trying...
March 09, 2022
For the twenty-five-plus years that Jeanne and I have lived in our house, the lot...
February 2022
February 05, 2022
Dear Persons of Faith: Stop Trying to Prove that God Exists
In Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel Gilead, Reverend John Ames (one of my top...
January 2022
January 27, 2022
It hardly seems possible that I am now in the tenth calendar year of writing...
October 2021
October 24, 2021
“The Heart Has its Reasons . . .”: Why I am Not an Atheist
In my ethics classes, we are currently in the middle of a unit called "Does...
September 2021
September 14, 2021
It is the happy life that asks more of us than we realize we have...
August 2021
August 31, 2021
One of my favorite things to do is plan a new course, especially when I’m...
July 2021
July 16, 2021
I don't often post an essay on this blog that has no discernable connection to...
June 2021
June 24, 2021
A Modest Proposal: Should My Time Be For Sale?
My next book project is a memoir about the teaching life. I started gathering materials...
June 19, 2021
A Father’s Day Reflection: What My Dad Taught Me about Reading and Belief
One of the most important things an author has to write when a book is...
December 2020
December 29, 2020
Is Tolerance a Luxury or a Virtue?
Earlier this month, I posted an essay titled "It Isn't True Just Because You Believe...
December 14, 2020
News Flash: There is Going to be a Doctor in the House
When does a person get to use the title "Doctor" in front of their name?...
December 05, 2020
Are You the One Who Is to Come?
The great but incredibly difficult German philosopher Immanuel Kant, in a rare moment of clarity,...
November 2020
November 17, 2020
The Ancient Stoics in Zoom Land
I was asked a few days ago by someone in our Marketing and Communications area...
August 2020
August 30, 2020
So You Want to be a Blogger? Here are some things I’ve learned over the past nine years.
Nine years ago today, I started this blog. The last three and a half of...
August 19, 2020
When the Bible is Not the Word of God
This month marks the eighth anniversary of this blog. It started on Wordpress as an...
July 2020
July 30, 2020
When a Child of the Universe Dies
One of the few bright spots during the past months of COVID-19 seclusion and insanity...
June 2020
June 25, 2020
Why Did Jesus Tell Stories? Because All Good Teachers Do
Man is in his actions and practices, as well as in his fictions, essentially a...
June 05, 2020
The building looked like the love child of a logic problem and a crossword puzzle....
May 2020
May 12, 2020
This is the Way the Semester Ends
During the early weeks of the semester in our “Apocalypse” seminar, my teaching colleague from...
March 2020
March 22, 2020
“Get Out of My Face”: A tribute to my oldest son on his birthday
Today is my oldest son Caleb’s 41st birthday. He wears it well. When my daughter-in-law...
February 2020
February 18, 2020
When an Important Memory Turns Out to be Wrong
My youngest son, Justin, has a remarkable memory--for, as he puts it, "totally useless facts."...
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