Book Four

A couple of nights ago, while reading The Lord of the Rings again, I read a passage that’s stuck with me. I know I’ve read it a dozen times at least but I’d never noticed it until this reading. Lately, when I read the LOTRs, I’ve tried to pause, and by taking my time, to [...]

Read Full Post »

Meditating on San Francisco

Over the weekend I made my first trip to San Francisco and to California. I went to present my master’s thesis, and to my delight it received favorable reviews from the people who were interested enough to read it.
My trip was a whirlwind. I arrived in San Francisco Airport at 12:30 am [...]

Read Full Post »

Thinking on Work (dredged from the drafts folder)

Over the last couple of months, as I’ve begun to mentally transition out of graduate and into “a career,” I’ve begun to wonder at just how complex the different people’s work lives are and I’ve begun to wonder again about how people in the church who gather in a spiritual and interpersonal context conceptualize work.
Somewhere [...]

Read Full Post »

Illusions

Over the last year or so Charity has shown her steadfast love for me in letting every third Netflix or so be a Frasier disc. Before graduate school when I was living at home, Dad and I used to watch Frasier reruns together. It was a point of bonding between us and I’ve [...]

Read Full Post »

An Evening Post

It’s 9:30pm on this warm winter’s night.  Our front window is thrown open and the warm are is flowing into our house, heating it from the outside in.  Tonight I was talking with my friend Pete and he compared his home state of Oregon to Israel in terms of economic size and I thought, “Garsh, [...]

Read Full Post »

So Yeah . . . I’m Working Now

Tonight, it’s late, and by all proper accounts I should be asleep . . . but I’m not. Instead I’m up blogging and listening to HEM and, to be honest, farting a lot. Be glad you’re reading this instead of sitting beside me.
Tonight we went over to our friends’, the C.s, house where [...]

Read Full Post »

After the First Day

It’s late and tonight at our house has been uncharacteristically quiet with Charity wearing her bathrobe as a indoor winter coat curled up on the love seat under blanket and reading the last Harry Potter and with me reading a Eugene Peterson book. Around us the quiet tick-tock of the clock mixes with the [...]

Read Full Post »

A Question

So blogland, I have a question for those of you who browse by here from time to time. Give me a moment to set up the two passages that have combined to make this question.
This morning I was reading and came across this quote,
“If we want to change our way of life, acquiring [...]

Read Full Post »

Returning from a Journey

I first posted this many moons ago and it’s been on my mind this weekend during our travels.
“It is not true of the past or the present to say that ‘only the rich or those on vacation can take journeys.’ Most men make some journeys. Whether long or short, with an errand or simply [...]

Read Full Post »

On Meditation

Tonight I’m reading the second chapter of Celebration of Discipline in preparation for our conversation tomorrow with the Cs and Ben over breakfast. The passage below stuck out to me and I thought I’d type it up here, not because it typifies me but because I find it so utterly contrasting, so [...]

Read Full Post »

Pulled from the Drafts Folder

(Typed up six days ago)
The dusk is settling on Chapel Hill, casting its glow through the end of another hot August day. Outside the cicadas are rattling, inside Charity is cooking in the kitchen and on the love seat I’m pondering the future. Outside our street is lined with cars signaling the [...]

Read Full Post »

No Spoilers Here.

On Sunday night I had Tim pray for me during the service in the chairs we have set up in the back of the sanctuary and yet again I loved how his prayers and the music washed over me with promises and supplications blending into one noise, a waterfall of balm and it felt like [...]

Read Full Post »

An Amendment

As the heat of this first summer day dies away in the west, I’ve spent the last twenty minutes of this early evening reading over the posts that are currently visible on the blog. I noticed that it takes a while to get to something of substance. The last month’s posts have been [...]

Read Full Post »

In the Sunshine under the Bay Window

Currently the afternoon sun is beating through the windows and it fills the bay window around me with a soft yellow sunlight. The soft tick-tock of the granite clock is mixing with sounds of a neighbor mowing and the cool air of inside the house is just sharp enough to remind me from time [...]

Read Full Post »

Out of the Leaf-Mould of the Mind . . .

Recently I talked with a friend about some of his germinating film ideas and during that conversation this Tolkien quote, read long ago in his biography, came back to me.
“One writes such a story not out of the leaves of trees still to be observed nor by means of botany and soil-science; but it [...]

Read Full Post »