Apr
28
Teaching and Learning
April 28, 2006 | Leave a Comment
I think I mentioned in a post not too long ago that I’ve been working pretty hard at recovering my lost trumpet-playing skills. It turns out that playing music is not exactly like riding a bicycle–it doesn’t just come back to you automatically. It’s taken me about six months to get myself to a point [...]
Apr
27
A Tale of Two Bishops
April 27, 2006 | Leave a Comment
There was a fascinating essay by Peter J. Boyer in the New Yorker for this week regarding the Present Unpleasantness in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. I was drawn to the essay like a rubbernecker to a traffic accident, principally because of my own past involvement with the PECUSA. Another [...]
Apr
26
Science and Religion
April 26, 2006 | Leave a Comment
There was a good opinion piece by Kevin Shapiro in last Friday’s Wall Street Journal. Shapiro is a researcher in neuroscience at Harvard University, but I don’t mention that merely by way of credentialism. Instead, I find it interesting that he is a serious scientist who agrees with Stephen Jay Gould’s proposal that we treat [...]
Apr
25
Well I’m Glad That’s Finally Settled!
April 25, 2006 | Leave a Comment
An introduction to a piece on Future Church at the NPR website has this to say:
Inscriptions and images found on tombstones, frescoes and mosaics throughout the Mediterranean show that women held respected roles in the early Christian church that were identical to those held by men. They were apostles, priests, deacons and bishops.
So what’s all [...]
Apr
25
Woodland Altars
April 25, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Last week I served as a chaperone to my son’s sixth grade class field trip. They went to a beautiful camp in Adams County, Ohio, called Woodland Altars. We spent nearly three days there, and I was quite impressed with the whole program of instruction. I was also impressed with the marked difference between the [...]
Apr
14
Semetipsum Exinanivit
April 14, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Lately I’ve been reading Fr. Richard Neuhaus’ new book, Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy, and the Splendor of Truth (New York: Basic Books, 2006), with great interest and pleasure. His is a tale of conversion, and I am often struck by some of the similarities between his spiritual journey and my own. In discussing his background, [...]
Apr
13
Primitivism
April 13, 2006 | Leave a Comment
The impulse to primitivism is not an unnatural one. It seems consonant with our intuitions that, if we are to follow Christ, it is necessary to know as much as possible about the earliest followers who, it is presumed, knew more about what it means to follow him, since they were closer in time to [...]
Apr
3
Cycling Merit Badge
April 3, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Last Saturday my son, Michael, and I participated in a minor bike-hike as part of Michael’s quest for the elusive Cycling Merit Badge. He has already gone on a 10 mile bike hike followed by overnight campout, and this event was to be a 15 mile bike hike followed by overnight campout, but the Athens [...]
Apr
3
Philosophy Forum
April 3, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Each year the philosophy department at Ohio University hosts a major philosopher for three days of discussions and public lectures. There have been some heavy hitters at this yearly forum: Hilary Putnam, Robert Nozick, Alasdair Macintyre, Julia Annas, Arthur Fine, Simon Blackburn, and my personal favorite: Daniel Dennett. This year our guest was the distinguished [...]
Apr
2
Spring Break
April 2, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Somehow it seems a little counterintuitive to drive 275 miles north for spring break, but that’s what we did–we spent the time in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where my mother-in-law lives and moves and has her being. We go there fairly often, and the whole family usually has a great time, but whereas we all used [...]
