Martin Luther King Jr Day meditations on a complicated kindness

January 18, 2021

Make America Kind Again Inauguration week. January 2017. Again? It is complicated to post this photo on Martin Luther King Jr. Day -- much more complicated...

How to host a grading party... in 2021

December 18, 2020

How to host a grading party This is the last week of the fall semester at Wheaton College. Normally, at some point in the week, I'd be hosting a six-hour,...

My Favorite Things

December 6, 2020

Trees We decorated for Christmas this weekend, and that has me thinking about trees. Tree-lighting celebration in Glendale Heights, Illinois. PC: David...

Now you see it...

November 30, 2020

...Now you don't On the missing monolith. Links "The Heavy Toll of the Black Belt's Wastewater Crisis" "Burning Fossil Fuels Helped Drive Earth’s Most...

We made it

November 21, 2020

We made it On Friday, November 20, Wheaton College held its last day of in-person classes for the semester. It was also warm enough to read on the porch at...

Quilts... trust me again

November 15, 2020

Last week, I highlighted a series of stories about the Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team and said, “Trust me on this one.” This week, I’m recommending an art...

Lacrosse politics... Trust me on this one

November 8, 2020

Beautiful ending Sunset from my front yard on the day before the election, which was a beautiful ending. Links The election sucked all the oxygen out of the...

Metaphorically speaking

November 1, 2020

Metaphorically speaking Quote "The prayers of both could not be answered - that of neither has been answered fully." It's never a bad time to reread reread...

Academia is...

October 25, 2020

Academia is... True. News Earlier this week, I shared that I'll be writing a biography of Jacques Ellul, the French social theorist and theologian, for the...

Issue 19

October 18, 2020

The Gardeners’ Dirty Hands On Wednesday evening, we had our discussion of Chapter 3 of The Gardeners’ Dirty Hands, focused on global environmental governance...

Things you can do during the pandemic

October 11, 2020

Favorite photo from a family gathering last Sunday Things you can do during the pandemic You can watch your friend and colleague give an amazing performance...

Liberal arts education between pandemic and protest

October 5, 2020

Few things are more rewarding than collaborating with smart people on important issues, and so I’m excited to be part of the group at Liberating Arts. Thanks...

Can't stop looking, can't stop listening

October 3, 2020

A Mesmerizing Photo Silence This week I had the privilege, again, of reading Shusaku Endo’s Silence with students in my First-Year Seminar. We’ve spent about...

"Chicagohenge," a dream course, and upcoming events

September 26, 2020

“Chicagohenge“ A dream course I’ve got a couple dream courses that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to teach, and one is “Prison Letters.” From Paul to John...

The "Eights"

September 19, 2020

The "Eights" On Thursday, I got to teach one of my favorite class sessions of every fall semester, discussing with my First-Year Seminar students George...

More Gifts and Forgiveness

September 12, 2020

The Gardeners' Dirty Hands Beginning this Wednesday, you can participate in a five-part series on The Gardeners' Dirty Hands: Environmental Politics &...

It's been a while

September 6, 2020

Happy Labor Day weekend, friends! It’s been a while since I last sent a newsletter. As you may recall, when I kicked this off in March, I said it was...

Joyce Wagner, 97, Auschwitz survivor

June 8, 2020

Meeting Joyce Wagner Sometimes I wonder what I'll write in one of these newsletters. Not this week. This week, I'm writing about my encounter with Joyce...

Against complacency (and a few subversive recommendations)

May 31, 2020

Against complacency In the past three weeks, I’ve published a couple pieces with Comment: This review of Daniel Vaca’s Evangelicals, Inc. and this essay,...

Courageous engagement

May 18, 2020

Right now, I'm reading a lot by and about the mid-20th century French polymath Jacques Ellul, and this week I reread parts of Andrew Goddard's Living the...

Seeing our entanglements more clearly

May 11, 2020

From my review of Daniel Vaca’s Evangelicals, Inc.: Books and the Business of Religion in America, published this week by Comment magazine: If we squint just...

"America Undefined" *or* there's nothing normal about normal

May 4, 2020

If Hutton imagined a Midwest just reaching high noon, more recent writers use a tone that varies between chastened and scared. If the Midwesterner of the...

Superpowers (and jazz and sangria)

April 26, 2020

If you could choose one superpower… In case you were wondering, “There is no rigid definition of ‘a superpower.’” At least that’s what Wikipedia says. That’s...

A mini-tribute to Sir John Houghton

April 19, 2020

A mini-tribute to Sir John Houghton I don't intend this newsletter to start with something like an obituary on anything like a regular basis, even during...

(Mostly) Recommended Easter weekend listening

April 12, 2020

For the most part, I'm taking an Easter weekend break from the newsletter, but I do have a few recommendations -- mostly for listening -- this weekend. (If...

Losses and lessons

April 4, 2020

Losses This past week, we learned that Michael Sorkin, the architect, critic, and urban theorist, died of complications from COVID-19. One of Sorkin’s best-...

Pandemic projects

March 28, 2020

Shelter in place = a new pace Canceling most face-to-face engagements and moving the remainder online does change the pace of things. Suddenly, we find...

Gifts and Forgiveness

March 24, 2020

Greetings, friends. Welcome to Issue #1 of Gifts and Forgiveness. After thinking through a newsletter for a while -- probably a little over a year now --...