Sunday, July 6, 2025

A man born blind


After John 9

A choice of answers

is offered as questions

to explain why a man

was born blind – did

he sin or did his parents?

He rejects both, explaining

it is no one's fault; it’s

not a question of blame

or fault. Hardship or

suffering isn’t a punishment;

that’s not how it works.

Endurance and healing and 

relief become the purpose

for which they’re intended:

to display the power of God.

 

Photograph by CDC via Unsplash. Used with permission.


Some Sunday Readings

 

“America the Beautiful,” by Katherine Lee Bates and Samuel Ward – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Friendship’s Faithful Wounds – Melissa Edgington at Your Mom Has a Blog.

 

Saturday, July 5, 2025

Saturday Good Reads - July 5, 2025


You read about the American Revolution, and it’s usually connected to something about the military – Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill, Valley Forge, Yorktown. But it wasn’t all about battles. One of the seeds leading to the revolution was the Peter Zenger trial, which had to do with the freedom of the press. Then there were artists promoting the American rebels’ cause – in Britain of all places. And Robert Morris figured out what was needed to transfer the weaponry Gen. Washington needed to undertake the Yorktown campaign. Speaking of Washington, this past week was the 250th anniversary of his taking command of the Continental Army in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  

In 1837, a large group gathered to commemorate the Battle of Lexington and Concord, the Declaration of Independence, and the American Revolution. And Ralph Waldo Emerson read a poem that contained one of the most famous lines in American history and poetry.

 

By the way, not everyone living in America liked the Declaration of Independence. Tories and Loyalists objected, and two of them actually penned and published a response. Back in England, in the nave of Westminster Abbey, you can find a memorial to Major John Andre, ordered by General Washington to be executed for spying; the memorial commends his zeal for his country. We forget that for those who signed the Declaration of Independence, they were risking everything, including execution for treason. (I discovered, courtesy of Family Search, that I am related to one of the signers, Robert Treat Paine; he’s a second cousin seven times removed.)

 

A couple of contrarian views about poetry surfaced this week. Steve Knepper at New Verse Review explained why he’s against publishing the “selected poems” of poets, at least somewhat against. And former English teacher Susan Spear took issue with how poetry is taught in schools, focusing on “meaning” rather than “versecraft.”

 

More Good Reads

 

American Stuff

 

American Regeneration – Bari Weiss at The Free Press.

 

What to expect for the big 2-5-0 – Chloe Veltman at National Public Radio.

 

I’m Finally Hanging My American Flag – Larissa Phillips at The Free Press.

 

Why I’m a Patriot – Bradley Birzer at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

The Many Declarations of Independence – Ben Franklin’s World.

 

A Prayer from Africa for America – Tim Cantrell at The Cripplegate.

 

Music

 

George Frederic Handel: A Belated Appreciation – Michael De Sapio at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Poetry

 

“Home Thoughts, From Abroad,” poem by Robert Browning – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Thank God for ‘Doubting’ Thomas! – Malcolm Guite.

 

“Tichborne’s Elegy,” poem by Chidiock Tichborne – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Monseigneur Bienvenu’s Lesser-Known Meeting – Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street.

 

Do You Want What You Want? Edith Wharton’s Age of Innocence – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Mahmoud v. Taylor, Winnie the Pooh, and Why Children in Public Schools Deserve Beautiful Books – Nadya Williams at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

British Stuff

 

It was right to deny Communion to Chris Coghlan MP – Niall Gooch at The Critic Magazine.

 

The UK is no longer an “open” country for free expression – Freddie Attenborough at The Critic Magazine.

 

Life and Culture

 

You Don’t Need the Same Politics to Surf Together – David Litt at The Free Press.

 

Faith

 

How to Survive Prosperity: On Ministry Scandals and David’s Fall – Owen Strachan at To Reenchant the World.

 

Why Study the Declaration of Independence? – Dave Landry at Christian Americanism.

 

Country Roads – Life in 3D



 
Painting: An Amusing Story, oil on canvas by Louis Emile Adan (1839-1937).

Friday, July 4, 2025

The Mud Queen


When I agreed to co-teach a Sunday School class of second graders, I had no idea of what I was going to experience. And it wasn’t the kids.
 

It was my co-teacher, Carl.

 

He recruited me. We both had our youngest children – boys – in second grade. The Sunday School class needed a teacher. We’d met in an adult Sunday School class, but we weren’t particularly close friends. 

 

“Look,” Carl said, “they need a teacher for the second grade. I can entertain the kids, but you’re the teacher. We have to make this fun. We can show the kids that Sunday School is fun. And so is learning about God.”

 

To continue reading, please see my story at Cultivating Oaks Press. This is the summer edition, and the theme is merriment.

 

Photograph by Matt Seymour via Unsplash. Used with permission

Do they know?


After John 7:1-31
 

He speaks openly, they say,

so how can it be they

seek to kill him? They

say nothing to him as

he speaks, right there

in the temple, the very center

of life, and they do nothing.

Either the news and stories

are overblown, or they know

something, they know who

he is, and they will not

move against him, or they

are afraid to move against

him. Do they know he’s

the One foretold, the One

who could not perform

more signs than this man

had one? Are they afraid

when this many says,

“You know me.”

 

Photograph by Papaioannou Kostas via Unsplash. Used with permission.


Some Friday Readings

 

“Communion in the Asylum,” poem by Andrew Hudgins – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

Be Still and Know: Lives of the Wild Saints #10 – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule.

 

“To Canaan’s Land I’m on My Way” by William Matthew Golden – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Why I Changed My Mind About Women Pastors – Rachel Schoenberger at Reading Rachel.

 

Psalm 10 – Magean Willome at Poetry for Life.

Why I Won't Give Up on the USA -- Becky Ramsey.

Thursday, July 3, 2025

Poets and Fables: Steven Flint and “The Sun and the Boy”


It begins with the boy slowly waking up and welcomed by the rays of his much-loved friend, the Sun. While not noted, it’s assumed that they know each other well and have had previous adventures together. This day the adventure will be a swim. 

As always, in addition to the adventure, the Sun tells the boy a story. The stories are like fables, running the human qualities good and bad, each with an obvious moral. This day, the story is about pride, and how a sunflower listens so deeply to the flattery of a snake that he forgets his closest friend, the rose.


To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.


Some Thursday Readings

 

The Abolition of the Human – Jeremiah Webster at Front Porch Republic.

 

A Review of Matters for You Alone: Poems by Leslie Williams – Carla Sarett at New Verse Review.

 

Death, be not proud – poem by John Donne at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

Shakespearean Philosophy – Br. John Metilly at The Imaginative Conservative. 

 

Poet Laura: Poetry in Space – Sandra Fox Murphy at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Wednesday, July 2, 2025

Finding a Medal in a Small-Town Antique Store


I’m always suspicious of Facebook messages coming from people I don’t know. If it seems that a message might possibly be legitimate, I’ll check the person’s profile page. More often than not, it’s people from Hong Kong or the Philippines or Africa, or people who names and profile photos clearly don’t match. Click delete. 

A few weeks ago, one arrived that raised my suspicions, but the sender seemed legitimate. And he was. He asked me if I was the author of this article at Emerging Civil War: “Research for a Novel Upended a Family Legend.” Yep, that was me.

 

He said he had an interesting story to tell me, and we eventually connected by phone. 


To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.


Some Wednesday Readings

 

The Gift of What I’ll Never Write – Scott Hurst at Write to Understand.

 

Afraid to Click “Publish”? – Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

 

Volodya in Paradise: On Vladimir Nabokov – Larry Gaffney ay Church Life Journal.

 

Northanger Abbey and the Critics – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

Tuesday, July 1, 2025

Poets and Poems: Alison Blevins and “Where Will We Live if the House Burns Down?”


We’re familiar with the meaning of chronic illness. The most common types are cancer, heart disease, and diabetes, diseases with no known cures. They can often be mitigated and their effects reduced or controlled, but that doesn’t mean they’re eliminated, or that they no longer have to be dealt with and lived with.  

The impact of chronic illness on families can be devastating, disrupting and forever changing the patterns of daily life and relationships and often fundamentally changing the relationships themselves. That is what Alison Blevins explores in Where Will We Live if the House Burns Down?: Poems, a collection of 62 untitled prose poems in paragraph form. Collectively, the poems read like a fable of contemporary life.


To continue reading, please see my post day at Tweetspeak Poetry.


Some Tuesday Readings

 

A War Over Heaven and Hell – Dana Gioia reviews Paradise Lost: A Biography at The Wall Street Journal.

 

The states(s) of the world: What a poem can and cannot do – Padraig O Tuama at Poetry Unbound.

 

Arnold Bennet’s ten step plan for learning to appreciate poetry – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

Vanish O Night – poem by Jerry Barrett at Gerald the Writer.

 

“Whoso List to Hunt,” poem by Sir Thomas Wyatt – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Ocean (excerpt) – poem by Jessica Cohn at Every Day Poems.

Monday, June 30, 2025

"Blue Blood" by Damien Boyd


Acting Detective Inspector Superintendent Nick Dixon of the Avon and Somerset Police has a lot on his mind. It’s his wedding day; his wife-to-be, Detective Sergeant Jane Winters, is seven months pregnant. The wedding goes as planned, but that’s about all that goes as planned. A knock at his door that night is from his boss. A body has been found in the bay, and it’s a serving police officer. His partner is missing. Wedding day or not, Dixon has to deal with the case. 

Another case is added; two drug dealers had been found weeks earlier tortured and then killed. The dead and missing officers were involved. What ties the two cases together is the still-missing murder weapon – a 3D printed gun.

 

Adding to the threats of other deaths and someone printing guns is the investigation keeps leading the team back to the police. And Dixon has to cut through deceit, lies, and possible corruption to get to the truth.

 

Damien Boyd

Blue Blood
 is the 15th Nick Dixon crime novel by British writer Damien Boyd, and it’s a thriller of a story. Boyd is a master at riveting the reader’s attention, bringing the novel to a fever-pitch close. 

 

Boyd uses his own experience as a legal solicitor and a member of the Crown Prosecution Service to frame his stories. And that knowledge and experience is telling. He understands how policemen do their work, how prosecutions operate, and what happens when a former tax lawyer (Dixon) brings his very unorthodox thinking to police work. 

 

Blue Blood keeps you guessing right up to the end, and not only who the killer is but also whether some of the good guys and innocent bystanders will survive. And it’s a “I have to get up and walk around” ending.

 

Related:

My review of Damien Boyd’s As the Crow Flies.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Head in the Sand.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Kickback.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Swansong.

My review of Damien Boyd's Dead Level.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Death Sentence.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Heads or Tails.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Dead Lock.

My review of Damien Boyd’s Beyond the Point.

My review of Down Among the Dead by Damien Boyd.

My review of Dying Inside by Damien Boyd.

 My review of Carnival Blues by Damien Boyd.

My review of Death Message by Damien Boyd

My reveiw of From the Ashes by Damien Boyd.

Some Monday Readings

Winter and Summer on the Farm – Brian Miller at Notes from an East Tennessee Farmer.

 

Russian Roulette – Dominic Green at The Lamp on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Red Wheel.

 

London’s Wonderful East End – Spitalfields Life. 

‘Endurance Comes Only From Enduring’ – Cynthia Haven at The Free Press on Czeslaw Milosz.

Sunday, June 29, 2025

Questions


After John 7:1-31
 

Questions swirl,

a growing storm

as yet marked

only by clouds,

darkening, Already

some seek his life,

this threat to order,

this rabblerouser 

threatening to bring

down wrath.

Where is he, they ask.

Who is he, they ask.

Is he the one, they ask.

Who seeks to kill you,

they ask. The questions

rage, as if ocean

waves fight against

each other, ebbing and

flowing, cascading and

retreating, the crowd 

a raging sea of questions.

The answers are the same,

for now: his time has not

yet come. And the storm 

subsides.

 

Photograph by Amir Arabshahi via Unsplash. Used with permission.


Some Sunday Readings

 

Evangelism for Introverts – Greg Morse at Desiring God.

 

Watering Dirt – Ryanne Molinari.

Saturday, June 28, 2025

Saturday Good Reads - June 28, 2025


Trivia question: what’s the most sung song in American history, perhaps in all human history? Here’s a hint: it started life as a kindergarten song in 1893, and gradually people started changing the words. The composer was Kentucky-born Mildred Hill, whose sister ran an experimental school. The Hill’s sisters’ ideas about music influenced Anton Dvorak’s “New World Symphony.” And the song? “Happy birthday to you.” 

What punctuation mark seems headed for the ash heap? According to Joel Miller, it’s the semicolon. And he asks, and answers, what happened to it.

 

We think of the end of the Civil War, and we connect to Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Technically, that’s wrong. Confederate General William Johnston surrendered to Gen. Sherman two weeks later. The Confederate forces in Texas surrendered in June of 1865. But the last shots of the war were fired a long way from the battlefields – would you believe the Arctic Ocean?

 

The novel has been dead, close to death, dying, and on its last legs for nearly a century. If true, it’s the most prolonged death in literary history. Lincoln Michel at Counter Craft takes a long, thoughtful look at the so-called death of the novel, and he has some surprising insights.

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

Key Battles That Secured America’s Victory in the Revolutionary War – Tiffini Theisen at Military.com.

 

Edmund Burke and the Defense of America – Bradley Birzer at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Trojan Horse on the Water: The 1782 Attack on Beaufort, North Carolina – Josh Wheeler at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

Major John Van Dyk and the Bones of Major John Andre, Part II – Jeffrey Collin Wilford at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

Faith

 

The Nicene Creed in Old English, translated by AElfric.

 

An Agrarian Prayer – Hadden Turner at Front Porch Republic.

 

Writing and Literature

 

The Scariest Question for Non-Fiction Writers – Thomas Kidd.

 

Thoreau and the Eco-Puritans of Concord – Ryan Salyards at Front Porch Republic.

 

Alasdair MacIntyre on the Writing of History – Michael Baxter at Church Life Journal.

 

Dostoevsky and the Cure of a Culture – Br. Barnabas Wilson at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Israel

 

Iran’s Flying Monkeys – Tony Badran at Tablet Magazine.

 

Transforming Tactics to Strategy – Michael Oren at Clarity.

 

American Stuff

 

Custer’s Last Stand: The Epic Battle of the Little Big Horn – Jason Clark a This is the Day.

 

Trump’s tariffs didn’t unleash inflation – Robert Hutton at The Critic Magazine.

 

British Stuff

 

Samuel Johnson’s Last Word – Malcolm Forbes at Engelsberg Ideas.

 

The South Africanisation of Britain – Tom Jones at The Critic Magazine.

 

Poetry

 

“Sea-Fever,” poem by John Masefield – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

“Preludes,” by T.S. Eliot – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Lauds – Matt Miller at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Life ad Culture

 

Bringing Up Emil – Nadya Williams at Front Porch Republic.

 

What Both Sides Get Wrong About Immigration – Martin Gurri at The Free Press.

 

The Truth – Megan Woods



 
Painting: Young Woman Reading by a Window, oil on canvas by Delphin Enjolras (1857-1945).

 

Friday, June 27, 2025

Down to the sea


After John 6:1-21
 

Down to the sea we went,

down to the shore

down to the sea to sail,

to sail to Capernaum once more.

 

Dark it was, and stormy,

waves crashing at our ship;

we rowed against the waves and wind,

expecting we would flip.

 

Waves were smashing, winds were thrashing,

as misery gives way to fear,

and then we see him walking

on the sea, drawing near.

 

Do not be afraid, he says,

as he steps into the boat;

the winds die down, the waves subside,

once again we’re gently afloat.

 

Photograph by Forrest Moreland via Unsplash. Used with permission.


Some Friday Readings

 

Lord of Earth, Thy Forming Hand – poem by Robert Grant at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin).

 

The Death Culture of the UK – Stephen McAlpine.

 

O For a Closer Walk with God, by William Cowper – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Divine Epigrams by Richard Crashaw – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

Thursday, June 26, 2025

Poets and Poems: Paul Pastor and “The Locust Years”


The first thing I noticed with The Locust Years: Poems by Paul Pastor is that it is a physically beautiful book. The cover illustration and interior art are by Michael Cook, an artist and gallery owner who lives in Derbyshire in England. This is the kind of book I find a pleasure simply to hold in my hands. I’m attracted to books like this; books that are as much a work of art as what they contain. 

The second thing I noticed, or rather learned, is that the poems were written over a four-year period that the poet says were the most difficult of his life. He doesn’t explain, except to say the poems themselves will provide the reader with few if any clues. The collection is not a memoir; it is a collection that grew from personal difficulties.


To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.


Some Thursday Readings

 

“The Shrouding of the Duchess of Malfi,” poem by John Webster and “O hour of all hours,” poem by Owen Meredith – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Giant statues to return to Notre Dame spire in latest stage of restoration – Kim Willsher at The Guardian

 

At the Monument – Spitalfields Life.

Wednesday, June 25, 2025

"Glorious Courage" by Sarah Kay Bierle


In my research for my novel Brookhaven, it was difficult not to run across references to one particular officer. 

John Pelham was an Alabama boy, the third of three sons and born in 1838 in a small wooden house in rural Benton County. His father was a doctor and farmer, enjoying both community respect and economic success. The family’s reputation was such that John’s father was able to get an appointment for his son to the U.S. Military Academy. The young man arrived at West Point in 1856, enrolling in a five-year degree program.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

The Language of the Master – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule.

 

How Warriors Prepare – H.R. McMaster at The Free Press.

 

Don’t Come Back In Until Dinner – Brian Miller at Notes from an East Tennessee Farmer.

 

Humanity in Wartime – Nadya Williams at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Five Takes on Bombing Iran – Glenn Harlan Reynolds.

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

What Happened to the Fireside Poets?


When I first envisioned my novel Brookhaven, I focused on a family story passed down through generations, which turned out to be a legend, as in, almost entirely untrue. But two things shifted my focus. 

First, in 2022, I had the old family Bible conserved. It had seen better days; my father gave it to me wrapped in grocery store bag paper and tied with strong. My contribution had been to remove the paper and string, wrap it in acid-free paper, and store in an acid-free box. It sat on a closet shelf for years, until I brought it to a book conservator in St. Louis. He discovered something tucked in the Book of Isaiah that both my father and I had missed – a yellowed envelope containing a lock of auburn hair.

 

For various reasons, I believe the hair belonged to my great-grandmother Octavia. She died in 1888 at age 44. Unusual for the time, my great-grandfather Samuel never remarried. He died in 1920. And I thought to myself, “There’s a love story here.”

 

Second, also in 2022, we saw a movie entitled “I Heard the Bells.” It’s a snapshot of the life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) during the Civil War, including both the tragic death of his beloved wife and the near death from a war wound of his oldest son Charles. Both events contributed to Longfellow’s writing the poem that became a Christmas hymn, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” 


To continue reading, please see me post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.


Illustration: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.


Some Tuesday Readings

 

Trembling Aspen – poem by Jerry Barrett at Gerald the Writer.

 

“Archaic Torso of Apollo” by Rilke and “Reconciliations” by Goethe – poems translated by Josh Olson at Society of Classical Poets.

 

“Pied Beauty,” poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Mystic Affection – poem by Sharon Powlus Wheeler at Every Day Poems.

 

Sonnet 60 by William Shakespeare – Rabbit Room Poetry.