Category: Blog

I mean literally, what is the thing that got inside of this California poet? Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962) is not read much anymore, but I predict his work will make a big comeback in the next decade. I somewhat grudgingly admit that he stands out as one of California’s most accomplished poets, in fact one of…

I am teaching this week (and in July and August) at Wheatstone Academy. I am excited about the opportunity to work with students who are interested in developing a coherent view of the world in an exciting and rigorous setting. What I like about Wheatstone is that they are not like some ministries that are…

Ambrose Bierce (born 1842, date of death an unsolved mystery) had a wit that could eat its way through anything. So universally sardonic was his imagination that there was nothing he couldn’t make fun of, and he proved it by making fun of the dictionary and all the words in it. For his Devil’s Dictionary…

I was just opining that the day of gigantic national parks had passed, that there are no new Yosemites to be set aside, and that today’s John Muirs would be well advised to find a new strategy. I should also have said that there aren’t any more Teddy Roosevelts to do the setting aside. If…

John Muir (1838-1914) deserves the title of “founder of the conservation movement.” He found his voice at a strategic time in American history and was remarkably effective at getting land preserved. He invented a whole range of rhetorical strategies which captured the public imagination and persuaded politicians to take action. When Muir made a case…

Here’s one way to think about what Paul’s doing in Philippians. Having prayed for the church in Philippi to “know which things matter most,” he calls them to re-direct their attention from What Doesn’t Matter Much to What Matters The Most. The argument form is basically “don’t look over there, look over here,” which is…

Here is the latest song by Terry Scott Taylor. He played it at a small concert last week and I can’t get it out of my head. He’s written dozens of songs that show him to be a Californian with deep roots in this region which seems rootless and placeless, and I know he’s been…

I lived in Berkeley from about 1995-1999, and enjoyed the wackiness of it all. Moving here from a seminary town in Kentucky with a cross atop the municipal water tower, my wife and I experienced the kind of culture shock usually reserved for overseas relocation. We knew the red state/blue state thing was going on…

This week I attended a small concert by Terry Scott Taylor, my favorite singer/songwriter. Terry’s been recording since the mid 1970s, with his serious band, a joke band or two, under his own name and various pseudonyms. These days he’s spending a lot of time writing music for animated cartoons. How’s that for versatility? But…

I’m spending this month with a group of about three dozen students who are reading Philippians over and over and over, trying to reach a point of saturation with this short letter (four chapters and not much over a hundred verses). My starting point for Bible study of this sort is always that the Spirit…