Light

After Matthew 5:13-16 

Light shines,

light illumines,

dispelling darkness

allowing truth to be

seen. No one uses

light to hide it,

or bring it. Light

is used to shine

upon the truth.

 

Put your light

upon a stand,

elevated to shine

in the household,

in the village,

in the land,

in the world.

 

Let your light shine

for others to see,

to allow others

in darkness come

into the light.

 

Photograph by Dyu-Ha via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“The Beginning of Contemplation,” poem by Gail Fox – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

“The Kingdom of God,” poem by Francis Thompason – Megan Willome at Poetry for life.

 

Eclipsing the Sun – Seth Lewis.

 

The Ministry of Saying Less – Peter Mead at Biblical Preaching.

A Non-Personal Memory of Wendell Berry

I first saw the news Monday about the death of Wendell Berry rather obliquely. Two Facebook friends independently posted poems by him. I stared, realizing the coincidence meant only one thing. He’d died, aged 92. 

Some news events shock you, upending what you understand about the world. An assassination. The fall of the Berlin Wall. A terrorist attack like 9/11. Others reduce you to a sense of profound quiet. It was that second kind I experienced on reading those two poems. Neither post mentioned his death. They didn’t have to. I knew.

 

I don’t have a personal story about Wendell Berry. I know people who’ve gone to his lectures, and people who’ve made pilgrimages to his home in Kentucky. People who’ve met him. But I don’t have a personal story. What I have is a one-off story, which probably tells you more about agriculture, biotech agriculture, and the wars that raged over genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, for three decades. The story also tells you more about Berry’s impact and influence than many obituaries.

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

The 2026 Society of Classical Poets International Poetry Competition and the International High School Poetry Competition. 

 

“The Elixir,” poem by George Herbert – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

After the Storm, Still I Float – poem by Riyanka Paul.

 

“The Blind Man and the Elephant,” poem by John Godfrey Saxe – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient & Modern. 

Some Wednesday Readings - Sept. 2, 2026

Wendell Berry’s Affections – Gary Houchens at The Imaginative Conservative. 

Wendell Berry (1934-2026) – Jeffrey Bilbro at Front Porch Republic.

 

The Witness of Wendell Berry – C. Christopher Smith at Cultivating Communities.

 

The Swap Not Heard ‘Round the World: Ordering the Declaration’s Grievances – Rpbert Parkinson at The Journal of the American Revolution.

 

The Highdays & Holidays of Old London – Spitalfields Life.

 

Your Guide to Dolly Parton’s Crime Movies – Olivia Rutigliano at CrimeReads. 

 

Photograph: Wendell Berry (1934-2026).

Poets and Poems: Jen Karetnick and "Organ Language"

A grandmother’s jewelry. A heavy rainfall. The fruit in a pina colada. A soccer game. Accompanying a parent to a medical procedure. Waiting for biopsy results. A can opener. Grief. Riding in the car with your sister. Gardening. A frog. Cicadas. Arthritis. The neighbor who calls you by the wrong name. 

What all these disparate things have in common is that they’re familiar. common, everyday. They’re so familiar that we often forget them or overlook them. 

 

In the hands of poet Jen Karetnick, however, the familiar and the common become something else. She reaches into her own childhood. She considers the experiences of her own children. She looks at the life she’s living now. The subjects are largely what we know as experiences common to all of us, but Karetnick shows us how the familiar will also indicate something deeper, something more profound. That’s the heart and soul of her new collection, Organ Language.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Night jar – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

Planted – poem by L.L. Barkat at Every Day Poems.

 

“You, Andrw Marvell,” poem by Archibald MacLeish – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Poetry Club Tea Date: The Pershing Hotel – Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Do You Hear Birds? – poem by Elizabeth Wickland at Rabbit Room Poetry.

Some Monday Readings – Aug. 21, 2026

In Search of Northanger Abbey: Farleigh Hungerford Castle – Nancy Bilyeau at English Historical Fiction Authors. 

At the Zoo – Adam Smith at Ford Forum.

 

The Restless Odysseus in All of Us – Luke Sheahan at National Review.

 

Storytelling with Martin Shaw – Frank Mulder at Plough.

 

Why Is Nothing Original Anymore – E.J. Larow at After Progress.

 

The Man Called Ishi: Story of the Yahi’s Final Survivor – Brian Clark at This Is the Day.

 

Review: An Underappreciated Victory; Bernardo de Gálvez’s Mississippi River Campaign Against the British in 1779 by Stephen L. Kling, Jr. and Kristine L. Sjostrom – Phil Greenwalt at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

See 16 Stunning Images from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards – Carlyn Kranking at Smithsonian Magazine.

 

“Consecration Day” – William Merriman at The Imaginative Conservative. 

 

Photograph: The existing buildings and part of the ruins of Farleigh Hungerford Castle, via English Heritage.

Salt

After Matthew 5:13-16 

Use salt to enhance

the taste, just enough;

too little and it doesn’t

work; too much, and it

ruins the food. Leave

it on the shelf too long,

not using it, and it’s

good only to be thrown out.

 

You are salt,

salt of the earth,

used when the time

is right, when

the seasoning is

needed, to bring

the full flavor

of the food.

 

Photograph by Pavel Neznanov via Unsplash. Used with permission. 

Some Sunday Readings

 

An Overlooked Argument for Christianity – Gavin Ortlund at The Gospel Coalition.

 

When Your Child Moves Out as an Unbeliever – Stephen Jones at Increase Our Faith.

 

The Church Is Not a Museum – poem by Theresa Burley at What Christians Want to Know.

Saturday Good Reads - August 29, 2026

This past Thursday was the 250^th anniversary of the Battle of Brooklyn. The army of George Washington lost the battle – and the American Revolution was nearly strangled right at the very beginning. What saved Washington’s army was a group of soldiers known as the Maryland 400.  

I own a Kindle, and I have a lot of books on it. I’ve also been paring back my library of physical books; some 400 have already made their way to a school library. But I do love holding a book in my hands while I read. Matthew Adams at Mining the Riches agrees, and he says some things are worth holding on to.

 

Have you ever wondered how people predicted the weather before we had Accu-Weather? Signs in the sky? Aching bones? Meteorology didn’t begin coming of age until the mid-nineteenth century, but people had been predicting the weather long before that. Becky Little at History takes a look at the various ways people used to figure out what was happening or going to happen with the weather.

 

Faith

 

The Best Argument for Christianity – Kelly Keller at Story Warren.

 

Christian Obedience in Two Words – Michael Kelley at Forward Progress.

 

Surprised by Silence – Matthew Rubenstein at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

America 250

 

The 21-Mile Circle: American Revolution Heritage Sites in the English Midlands – Steve Willis at Journal of the American Revolution. 

 

Negotiating American Independence and Thwarting the Newburgh Conspiracy – Keli Holt at Just Enough History.

 

Poetry

 

Forming the Affections of Our Children – Paul Kearney at Front Porch Republic.

 

Chaucer Announces His Desire to Retire – poem by Paul Freeman at Society of Classical Poets.

 

“Farewell to Juliet,” poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt and “Don Juan,” (excerpt) by Lord Byron– Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Life and Culture

 

The Trap: A conspiracy theory – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Chesterton & the “Great Religious Genius” of Doctor Johnson – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

British Stuff

 

Relics at St. Paul’s From Before the Fire – Spitalfields Life.

 

The England I Knew Is Gone – Carl Trueman at First Things Magazine.

 

The Farmers’ Choir – Britain’s Got Talent

Painting: Woman Reading, oil on canvas by Gabriel Metsu (1629-1667).

The signal

After Isaiah 11:1-11 

The day of the reign

of the root, the branch,

is a signal for the peoples,

all the peoples, and

the nations come to ask,

to worship. 

 

The hand of the root,

the branch, extends

to the scattered

remnants, all

the remnants,

his chosen,

gathered together

from the east

and the west,

the north and

the south, a signal

of the reign,

a signal

to come home.

 

Photograph by Hugo Jehanne via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“Morning Person,” poem by Vassar Miller – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

“Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven,” hymn by Henry Francis Lyte and John Goss – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Why I’m a Calvinist – Kyle Borg at Gentle Reformation.

How the Norton’s Anthology Shaped My Understanding of Poetry

I still own four of the textbooks I used in college: Investigative Reporting, The History of Journalism, and a two-volume set of the Norton’s Anthology of English Literature. The fact that I was a journalism major explains the first two. But those two volumes of the Norton have their own story. What those four books have in common is that I took those courses all in my sophomore year. You can do the math: my sophomore year was 1970 to 1971. 

The vast majority of my sophomore class took the required English 55 and 56 classes – American literature. There was also another option – English 51 and 52, English literature.

 

No one took English Lit, except English majors. It was notorious for the rigor of its instructors, focused as they were on educating the next generation of English teachers. That’s who generally took the two courses.

 

I don’t remember why I decided to go with the English majors. I was in journalism; I was not going to be teaching English literature. I suspect it had something to do with T.S. Eliot, whose poetry I’d discovered in high school. Yet that’s not really an excuse; Eliot was also taught in the standard sophomore courses.

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

September Sunflowers – poem by Cameron Brooks at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

Night Sky with Strawberry – poem by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

 

“There Was an Old Woman, Tossed in a Blanker,” nursery rhyme – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

When Family History Doesn’t Work Out as Expected

When I began to write my historical novel Brookhaven, my jumping off point was a family story. My father often told me about my great-grandfather, Samuel Young, and his Civil War experience.  

The story was this: Samuel was 13 when the war began in April of 1861. He was too young to enlist, so he signed up as a messenger boy. He had been in that position for a good deal of the war. When the war ended with the surrender of General Lee’s Army at Appomattox Courthouse to General Grant and the surrender of General Johnston’s army to General Sherman at Greensboro, Samuel found himself in the East, with no way to get home except by foot.

 

The story went on, 

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

Photograph: My paternal great-grandparents, Samuel Franklin Young and Octavia Montgomery Young.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Is the End of Reading Here? – Zach Franzen at Story Warren.

 

Education and Marxism – Jerry Newcombe at Real Clear Politics.

Poets and Poems: Peter Murphy and “You, Too, Were Once on Fire”

About the time my mother turned 75, she said something to me that she’d been apparently been saving up. “You know,” she said, “I’ve reached an age when I can say what I think, and I don’t have to worry about what happens because of it.” This was something she learned from her own mother, who’d made some kind of similar announcement at about the same age. Except my grandmother had been doing exactly that long before she announced it. So had my mother. 

I remembered those statements as I read deeper into You, Too, Were Once on Fire: Poems by Peter Murphy. Ad those thoughts hit me as I read “Stairs to All Levels,” a poem about Frank O’Hara and New York City and the Twin Towers and 9?11, and you don’t even realize it until the end of the poem hits you upside the head with a smack. It was that poem, followed immediately by “Miss Besieged Sarajevo,” about a beauty contestant during the Bosnian War in 1993, that made me realize I needed to make sure my seat belt was buckled and tray tables were locked securely for takeoff.

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

A Giant on the Shoulder of Giants – J.C. Scharl at Public Discourse.

 

Hands of Christ – poem by Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street.

 

Your Poems: The Beachy Poem Challenge – Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (excerpt), poem by Samuel Talyor Coleridge – Every Day Poems.

 

“Jabberwocky,” poem by Lewis Carroll – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

Two Miss Marple Short Stories by Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie wrote a slew of short stories. Many featured her celebrated detectives, Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple, and a few included her detective duo, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. And many were standalones, mysteries, thrillers, spy stories, and even a ghost story or two.  

The woman was a writing machine.

Two of her Jane Marple stories are “The Case of the Perfect Maid” and “The Herb of Death.” Both are vintage Marple. 

 

In “The Case of the Perfect Maid,” the village of St. Mary Mead is buzzing with the news – a maid has been fired by two elderly sisters living together, supposedly on the grounds of theft. Miss Marple’s own maid, a good friend of the fired woman, asks her to “put things right;” there was no way her friend would have stolen anything. And Miss Marple pays a visit, discovering what the rest of the village has learned – a replacement maid has been installed, ad she may be the best maid ever to grace the village. But something is off, and Miss Marple knows it.

 

Agatha Christie

In “The Herb of Death,” a group of weekend guests (including Miss Marple) are gathered together, telling stories. One woman tells the story of a great tragedy, in which a young woman died of poisoning after eating foxglove mistakenly mixed with sage. The odd thing is that no one else at that fatal dinner got sick. So, what happened? Miss Marple quietly beings to piece together what really happened.

 

In her lifetime, Christie became an international institution, writing scores of novels and stories and selling millions of books. One interesting fact: She wrote The Mysterious Affair at Styles, her first novel, after a bet with her sister Madge. After rejections by six publishers, it was finally published four years later.

 

These short stories are what we call “cozy mysteries” today. Blood and gore is limited; gn graphic scenes of sex or violence. They are period pieces – and they’re great fun to read and solve along with Miss Marple.

 

Related:

 

“The Lamp” – A Ghost Story by Agatha Christie.

 

Two Short Stories by Agatha Christie.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Stack Underflow: Losing the Craft of Coding – Jarett Malouf at The New Atlantis.

 

The Passing of the American Century – Lee Congdon at Modern Age.

 

The 1776 New York Campaign: 250 Years Later – Daniel Welch at Emerging Revolutionary War Era. 

 

One of the Deadliest Persecutions Against Christians in History – Samuel Sey at Slow to Write.

 

Edith Cavell – Brussels, Dawn, October 12, 1915 – A London Inheritance.

The wolf and the lamb

After Isaiah 11:1-11 

In the reign,

triumphant,

of the branch,

the shoot,

the wolf lives

with the lamb;

the calf and

the lion lie

down together;

a little child

shall lead.

The cow grazes

with the bear,

the lion eats

straw like an ox.

The child plays

by the snake.

And the reason

is the earth is

filled with

the knowledge 

of the Lord,

like the waters

cover the sea. 

 

Photograph by Gregoire Bertaud via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

Fellow Father, You Are Not a Failure – Aaron Armstrong at Story Warren.

 

The Council of Nicaea and Christian Character – J.V. Fesko at The Gospel Coalition / Themelios 51:2

 

How to Gather Well: 5 Ways to Prepare for Corporate Worship – Rob Brockman at The Gospel Coalition.

Saturday Good Reads - Aug. 2, 2026

Benjamin Franklin is rightly considered to be one of America’s founding fathers. But there was also his son, William, who had an entirely different take on the American Revolution. Danica Kirka ar Associated Press explains: “Ben Franklin chose America. Son William chose the crown. This civil war is a microcosm of revolution.” 

Hadrian’s Wall was built during the reign of the Emperor Hadrain. It stretches across the narrowest part of England – 73 miles from Newcastle on the east to Solway Firth on the west. Its purpose: keep the barbarian Picts in the north, separating them from Roman Britain. Jonathan Thomas at Anglotopia is walking the wall, and he’s providing daily updates. (He’s actually walking 84 miles, starting at the seacoast on the east.) 

 

Therapy culture has been shaping America for decades, and it has not excluded the church. Amy Mantravadi at Mere Orthodoxy reviews a new book on the subject, Resisting Therapy Culture: The Dangers of Pop Psychology and How the Church Can Respond by Matthew Loftus.

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

The “Battle” of Fort Thicketty – Tom Elmore at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

This Connecticut Teenager Spied on the British During the American Revolution, Succeeding Where Nathan Hale Failed – Claire Bellerjeau and Tiffany Yecke Brooks at Smithsonian Magazine.

 

The Battle of Yorktown – Keli Holt at Just Enough History.

 

Faith

 

Don’t Be Ashamed to Be Old – Tim Challies.

 

In Praise of My Youth Pastor – Derek Rishmawy at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Writing and Literature

 

That’s the Deal. What Rankles You Most About AI Prose? – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

‘A selfish, ignoble person’ – the dark side of the Nobel prize-winner Mario Vargas Llosa – Nicholas Shakespeare at The Spectator.

 

American Stuff

 

The Real Covid Scandal Is Bigger Than Fauci – Sigrid Bratlie at The Free Press.

 

Ernest Hamwi and the Ice Cream Cone – Jonathan Hickman at Missouri Historical Society.

 

Spinning in His Grave? TR, Fauci, & the Bureaucratic Beast – Chuck Chalberg at The Imaginative Conservative. 

 

British Stuff

 

The English are best – James Price at The Critic Magazine.

How I Became the Jason Arday Affair Scapegoat - Nathan Cofnas at The Wall Street Journal (story unlocked). 

 

Life and Culture

 

The DSA Strategy to Build Power – David Duhalde at The American Prospect.

 

The Mission Medley – Ennio Morricone (Live in Venice 2007)

 Illustration: An Old Man Reading, etching and dry point on laid paper (1642) by Ferdinand Bol (1616-1680). 

The reign of the branch

After Isaiah 11:1-11 

The branch bursts

into view, soon

establishing itself,

establishing a reign,

a reign marked by

righteous judgment,

blessing the meek

of the earth, striking

the earth with words,

destroying the wicked

with his breath. He

uses a belt, a belt

of righteousness;

her wears a belt

of faithfulness.

Meekness is blessed,

belief is blessed,

faith a blessed,

wickedness is

destroyed.

 

Photograph by Nick via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“Faith Is a Radical Master,” poem by Walt McDonald – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

A Blessing for the School Books – Kelly Keller at Story Warren.

 

“There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood,” hymn by William Cowper – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Words Like Rain – poem by Seth Lewis.

Poets and Poems: Gabrielle Myers and “Go Forth: Lose Yourself into Life”

The end of a relationship with a spouse or partner is like a death – a death of familiarity, a death of structure, a death of how we live our lives and who we share that life with. I’ve never experienced that kind of loss, but I’ve seen it happen to close friends and family members.  

Gabrielle Myers experienced that kind of loss, a relationship she ended after “five years of verbal abuse.” She did what many poets do – she turned to writing poetry to understand it, assimilate it, and resolve it –if such a thing can ever truly be resolved. But she did it in a rather unique way, by using the natural landscape around her to structure and explain her poems. And her loss.

 

The result is Go Forth: Lose Yourself into Life, Myers’ fourth collection of poetry. It could also be subtitled with the words she uses to begin her introductory essay: “Begin to Know the World Again from Nothing.”

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

The Splendor of the Orient – K.S. Bernstein at Apple Blossoms in a Mournful Wood on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 17.

 

August, in Passing – poem by Riyanka Paul.

 

Sonnets in St. Louis: The Life of Sara Teasdale – Zoe Korte at Missouri Historical Society.