Saturday Good Reads - Sept. 12, 2026

The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered beginning in 1947. A group of Bedouin shepherds discovered clay jars almost a thousand years old in desert caves. Jars kept being discovered into 1956. Selections from the scrolls are being exhibited this year at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. And Michael De Sapio at The Imaginative Conservative explains why the scrolls are so important to Western civilization. 

It happened back in the 1920s, a time of excess, prosperity, and broad disillusionment. America seemed to fall in love with vicious killers. And now, it seems to be happening again. Daniel Darling at The Daily Wire explains why America, or some subset of Americans, now worships its cold-blooded killers.

 

I have been bombarded by emails from people described as marketing experts, agents, editors, and book promoters, often with elaborate descriptions of my novels and how wonderful they are. Your heart might react a little, until you realize that all of these experts are likely derived from an AI application and the whole thing is a scam. Tim Challies explains how scammers are targeting Christian authors.

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

The Poetry of American Independence – Steve Knepper and Brad Skow at New Verse Review.

 

Strange Bedfellows: Adams and Franklin – Chris Mackowski at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

How Did the Nation Get Its Name? – Greg Daugherty at Smithsonian Magazine.

 

A Battle in Our Own Backyard – Molly McMurphy at Missouri Historical Society.

 

Washington’s Invalid Crops: Wounded Warriors Still Served the Revolutionary Cause – David Welker at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

Life and Culture

 

The Crucifixion of Patrick Clancy – Bethel McGrew at Further Up.

 

Homeschooling Is More Normal Than You Think – Tessa Carman at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Faith

 

Why we need to be students of the past / church history – Michael A.G. Azad Haykin at Historia ecclesiastica.

 

A Catechism on Technology – Darryl Dash at Dashhouse.

 

Writing and Literature

 

What is literary criticism, if not close reading? Art, Magic, and Common Sense – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

American Stuff

 

The Enduring Tragedy of 9/11 – Michael Oren at Clarity.

 

25 years ago, two strangers met in the twin towers and escaped on 9/11. What happened next? – David Smith at The Guardian.

 

On Escaping This Horrible Era – Matt Taibbi at Racket News.

 

The First Rough Draft of 9/11 History – Nicholas Clairmont at The Free Press. 

 

Poetry

 

“My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is,” poem by Sir. Edward Dyer – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“September 1913,” poem by Wiliam Butler Yeats – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

British Stuff

 

Tearing at the fabric – James Price at The Critic Magazine.

 

Shut Up and Dance – Movie Compilations

Painting: Hotel Room, oil on canvas (1931) by Edwad Hopper (1882-1967); Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.

Annual visit

After Luke 2:41-52 

It was something they did

every year, a journey

from Nazareth to Jerusalem,

to celebrate the Passover,

the remembrance of God’s

salvation of the people,

deliverance from Egypt,

deliverance from slavery,

the passing over the houses

marked with the blood

of the lamb over the doorway,

protected from the angel

of death. Jerusalem was

crowded, as it always was

at Passover, people crowding

into the city, packed throngs

around the temple, noise and

chaos and the bleating of lambs

to be sacrificed, food vendors

shouting, confusing to those

who did it every year. This year,

the couple from Nazareth brought 

their oldest, a 12-year-old boy,

a boy coming to visit

his father’s house.

 

Photograph by Toa Heftiba via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“The Wish to Be Generous,” poem by Wendell Berry – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

“Lord of A Hopefulness,” poem by Joyce Anstruther – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

The Illustration – poem by Seth Lewis.

Poets and Poems: Robert McDowell and “The Excellent Assembly”

If you’re older than 29 tor 30, you know precisely where you were on Sept. 11, 2001. My wife was at home, our oldest son was in college, and our youngest son was in school. I’d gone early to my small office in downtown Kirkwood, Mo.  

I turned on my small, portable television to watch the news. Instead, I saw a large passenger jet crash into the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York. Another jet had crashed into the North Tower 18 minutes earlier. A little more than 30 minutes later came the crash into the Pentagon. And then the crash into the field in Pennsylvania. 

 

Everything changed that day. Airline safety screening changed forever. A war started. The people who were the masterminds behind it were hunted down. But something deeper changed, something indefinable – the idea of the United States we carried in our heads.

 

Twenty-five years have passed. To remember that day, to remember the people on those planes and in those buildings, the policemen and firemen who gave their lives, and the families who lost loved ones, writer and poet Robert McDowell has written The Excellent Assembly. It’s a collection of 52 poems, not based on real people, but imagined to describe the types of people who died and were affected.

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

The Weeping World: A reading of Shakespeare’s ninth sonnet – K.S. Bernstein at Apple Blossoms in a Mournful Wood.

 

“Song of the Chattahoochee,” poem by the Sidney Lanier – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

What Wendell Berry Saw – Jason Edwards at Front Porch Republic.

 

“Dear Friends,” poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

“The Pobble Who Has No Toes,” poem by Edward Lear – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Reading Wendell Berry’s ‘III’ – Megan Willome at Poetry for Life.

 

Poet Laura: By Heart – Donna Hilbert at Tweetspeak Poetry.

This Didn’t Happen to a Friend of Mine

It showed up as a Facebook memory, a story I hadn’t thought about in years. I’d posted in August of 2009 on my blog and linked it from Facebook. The title was, “This Happened to a Friend of Mine.” The post received a grand total of one comment, from someone named “Anonymous.”

 

I started reading it. And I realize it hadn’t happened to a friend of mine. The premise was a variation of “asking for a friend.”

 

Seventeen years later, I’m not sure why I posted it. The situation had happened two months before. The account I posted was mostly true but not entirely, some things disguised or slightly changed to discuss what happened without pointing to specific people. It was an incredible difficult time, the kind of story that happens all the time in the corporate world but never makes LinkedIn. 

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

Photograph by Arlington Research via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Murders for September – Jeremy Black at The Critic Magazine.

 

Sweat the Technique: On Writing Process and Possibilities – Lincoln Michel at Counter Craft.

 

Wendell Berry and the Choice of Life – Elizabeth Stice at Front Porch Republic.

Poets and Poems: Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and “The Wonderment”

Poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer starts this poetry collection with an explanation of what inspired it. I can’t say I’ve read or heard an explanation quite like it. Her father, on his deathbed, “his eyes open but unseeing,” said a phrase, an incomplete sentence: “From our birth…to our death…the wonderment.” 

In other words, all of it, all of life, is full of wonder. The great mountain vistas. The ocean sunsets. A baby’s laugh. But also, the unexpected death, the illness, the hard times, grief. All of it contains a sense of wonder. Visiting the place where her son died, which she wrote about in her previous collection, The Unfolding, and his grave. 

 

In The Wonderment: Poems, published today, Trommer writes about some of the things that fill her with wonder. 

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Wild Blackberries – poem by David Whyte.

 

“A Dirge,” poem by Christina Rossetti – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

When an East Cast Girl Sees Saguaros –poem by Aberdeen Livingstone at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

Winners of Third Annual First Things Poetry Prize – First Things Magazine.

Two Hercule Poirot Short Stories by Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie has the distinction of being the only crime writer who created two equally famous and revered characters – Miss Jane Marple and Hercule Poirot. I’ve read almost all the novels featuring both amateur sleuths, and I can’t say which character I like most. They’re so completely different; what they have in common is that they share an ability to solve complicated crimes, almost impossible for anyone else in the stories to solve. 

I’ve discovered that I haven’t read many of the short stories featuring the characters (and I don’t think they ever appeared in the same story or novel). But I started stumbling over them – a link, an ad, something – and I know see that Christie did as well with her stories as she did with her novels.

 

Two recent Hercule Poirot stories I’ve read are The Incredible Theft and Problem at Sea.

 

The Incredible Theft was first published in 1937. It’s set in the classic country home of a lord with strong connections to the British Air Ministry. During a weekend gathering of friends and acquaintances, some significant plans for a new bomber are stolen. The problem is that everyone seems to be able to account for where they were when the theft happened. Solution: bring in M. Hercule Poirot, “that finny little foreigner,” to solve the case. And he does in a classic Agatha Christie fashion.

 

Agatha Christie

Problem at Sea was first published in 1939. A group of ocean voyagers are in route to Alexandria, Egypt, include M. Poirot. He watches all the conversations and interactions carefully, because something is clearly off. When a woman is found dead in her locked cabin, thee case seems to have no suspects at all; even Poirot heard her calling out, saying she was staying behind while others visited the port. But once again, he employs those “little gray cells” to solve the puzzle.

 

Both stories are approaching 90 years old, but it says something about Christie’s skill that they still sound almost contemporary. Each can be read in under 30 minutes, making them easy, quick entertainment.

 

Related:

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

Two Short Stories by Agatha Christie.

Two Miss Marple Short Stories by Agatha Christie.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

The British Evacuation of New York and the Fate of Loyalist Americans – Keli Holt at Just Enough History.

 

Over a Century of Willa Cather – Bradley Birzer.

 

Blood on Our Hands – Brian Miller at Notes from an East Tennessee Farmer.

 

Stay Organized: Keep Track and Back Up Your Writing – Dean Wesley Smith.

 

Religion & Rhetoric: The Significance of Religion to the Patriot Cause in the American Revolution – Ben Powers at Emerging Revolutionary War Era. 

Salt and light

After Matthew 5:13-16 

You are both

salt and light,

salt to season

and enhance, 

and light

to shine so

others may

see. You are

salt to flavor

the message,

you are light

to illuminate

the truth.

You are salt

to preserve;

you are light

to dispel

the darkness.

 

Photograph by Tim Hufner via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

How Do I Live in God’s Presence Every Day? – Daniel Hyde at Reformation 21.

 

The Defining Mark of the Christian – Robb Brunansky at The Cripplegate.

 

Driving Through Cornfields: Past the End of the World – Timothy Willard at Rapt.