It’s been a bittersweet year for us as we’ve seen two kids off to university. While we’re delighted for them, we have felt and will feel their absence keenly. Last year, during our final camping weekend of the summer before Maddie left for school, Sarah took this shot that captured the moment beautifully. I felt much the same […]

Hypocrisy abounds, along with the ugly exposure of interests and ham-fisted public relations, in the range of issues professional football has had to face. I’ve been thinking recently about how easy it is to point fingers at certain players, teams, and league officials, when there’s a larger complex of forces, including fans and media outlets […]

There’s a fascinating piece on the Kronos Quartet in the NY Times where they discuss their communication with one another and how they improvise. It’s fascinating in itself and beautiful to watch, but it also might serve to illuminate the manner in which we speak of relationships and community dynamics. I was especially struck by David […]

In assessing Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony, by Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon, Jennifer McBride offered the following comments clarifying the manner in which white American Christians envision their situation within the wider culture and how they ought to do so. It is disingenuous for white Protestants to deem ourselves alien to a culture […]

The academy’s a funny place. And by “funny” I mean pretty bizarre. I’m reading Dear Committee Members, a novel by Julie Schumacher that wonderfully captures the character of relationships and the varieties of inter-departmental dynamics on a college campus. It reminds me of Stanley Hauerwas’s comment, in Hannah’s Child, that academic departments are hives of envy […]