Well, here we are, at the beginning of another school year. For some of you reading this blog, it is your first fall at Harvard, and you are filled with excitement looking at the seemingly endless possibilities stretching before you. For others of you (like myself), it is your last fall at Harvard, and...
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Lately I’ve been reading through the book of Ezekiel. There are parts of this book that are often quoted because they are so readily applicable to our twenty-first century lives. God’s promise in chapter 34 to be Israel’s shepherd comes to mind—we know that Christians, too, have been made part of God’s flock, and...
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I have a problem: I’m terribly prideful. When I sit down to consider my life, I’m filled with a sort of warm, complacent glow at the thought that I’m such a brilliant, lovely person, with such a brilliant, lovely future ahead of me. And this self-satisfaction often distresses me, because I know that I...
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Recently I’ve been reading The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins, which is an excellent book and one of the first detective stories ever. Much could be written on it, but my attention was drawn to one Miss Clack, a minor character who provides a bit of necessary comic relief through her ludicrous actions and her...
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Afternoon tea—that particularly English custom—is, I have decided, one of the best things in the world. Furthermore, I think that it is a custom well worth bringing back to the United States. First and foremost, of course, an afternoon tea and scone is simply delicious, especially if you elaborate it with cakes and thin...
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Last weekend I visited Ely, a tiny little market town in England with a huge cathedral. It is a richly beautiful place, begun in 1081 and refurbished and added to by each successive generation of Christians since. There is a wealth of stories to be told about the cathedral, but I was particularly struck...
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Bare ruined choirs, where once the sweet birds sang… –William Shakespeare There is something uniquely melancholy about a ruined church, I always think. Ruined castles are sometimes sad, too, especially when they bear the marks of violence. Abandoned homes always seem forlorn, as if they are fruitlessly waiting for the return of their former...
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