Where to place your heart?

After 2 Samuel 24 

It’s a choice: where

to place your heart,

your hope, your confidence?

You have a multitude

of possibilities, of answers:

money, investments, 

property, possessions,

knowledge, experience,

reputation, family, health,

and more. He made his

choice, because of his power,

his influence, his span

of control. He forgot

the words of Joshua,

as for him and his house.

 

Photograph by Jamie Street via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“The Messiah: A Sacred Eclogue,” poem by Alexander Pope – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

“Lord, in This Thy Mercy’s Day,” hymn by Isaac Williams – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

A Thousand Lives – poem by Seth Lewis.

Poets and Poems: Dave Brown and "I Don't Usually, But"

I can’t recall when it began, but some years back, I discovered myself thinking of things that hadn’t been even a small blip on my radar when I was younger. I know it started before I retired. One morning, I woke up, fixed my breakfast, and started reading the obituary page in the newspaper. Regularly. Like, every day. I wouldn’t read each entry, but I’d scan the names, looking for people I might now or had heard of.

 

Eventually I started finding names I knew. People I had worked with. Former executives I’d written speeches for. People I knew from church. It was unsettling. I remember my mother, who for as long as I could remember had faithfully attended her annual high school class reunion. She finally stopped, explaining quietly that only three people were left. 

As you move into old age, you receive regular reminders of your own mortality, and not only from newspaper obituaries. As poet Dave Brown has discovered and written in I Don’t Usually, But, things that were never paid much attention to before take on meaning. 

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

4711 – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

“Tall Nettles,” poem by Edward Thomas – Sally Thomas ay Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Poet Laura: Written in March – Donna Hilbert at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

“Sally in Our Alley,” poem by Henry Carey – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“Tears of the widower” and “The lesser griefs,” from In Memoriam by Alfred, Lord Tennyson – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

“The Pembroke Castle Murders” by Stephen Puleston

A minister is found dead inside his church in the Welsh town of Pembroke, killed with some kind of hammer. As DI Caren Waits and her team at the West Wales Police Service investigate, they discover that nothing is ever what it seems, even the world of a minister. 

The minister had inherited a large estate from an elderly aunt. He had a half-brother and half-sister, who now stood to inherit. A fellow minister had been passed over for an appointment as cathedral dean. A local man had accused the minister of molesting his son. The suspects seem like they’re falling out of the trees.

 

In the meantime, Waits herself is waiting on the outcome of legal negotiations with her dead husband’s “second” wife, a woman who bore him a child. Waits herself has a young son. The woman has made a claim on the dead husband’s estate. The detective had had no idea of this second family.

 

Stephen Puleston

The investigation has almost too many suspects. Promising leads evaporate. Alibis seem airtight. And then the lawyer handling the estate is himself murdered, followed soon by a third death.

 

The Pembroke Castle Murders is the fourth of the DI Caren Waits series by Welsh writer Stephen Puleston. It’s a solid police procedural story, with Waits and her team plugging away, pounding the pavement, and tracking down ever lead. And in the end, they stage a rather thrilling trap.

 

Puleston publishes three series of Welsh police detective stories. Detective Inspector Ian Drake is with the North Wales Police Service, Detective Inspector John Marco is with the South Wales Police Service, and now Detective Inspector Caren Waits is with the West Wales Police Service. The author originally trained and practiced as a; solicitor/lawyer. He also attended the University of London. He lives in Wales, very close to where his fictional heroes live and work.

 

Related:

 

The Paxton’s Tower Murders by Stephen Puleston.

 

The Tenby Harbour Murders by Stephen Puleston.

 

The Swansea Marina Murders by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Written in Blood.

 

My review of A Time to Kill.

 

My review of Another Good Killing.

 

My review of Brass in Pocket.

 

My review of Worse than Dead.

 

My review of Against the Tide.

 

My review of Devil’s Kitchen.

 

My review of Dead Smart.

 

My review of Speechless.

 

My review of A Cold Dark Heart.

 

My review of A Cold Dark Heart.

 

My review of Dead and Gone by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Time to Die by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Stone Cold Dead by Stephen Puleston.

 

My review of Looking Good Dead by Stephen Puleston.

Poets and Poems: Emily Patterson and "The Birth of Undoing"

In her 2022 collection, So Much Tending Remains, poet Emily Patterson reflected on the first two years of her daughter’s life. In her new collection, The Birth of Undoing, she’s written something of a prequel, what came before those first two years.

 

Sitting in the waiting room at the fertility clinic, surprised “you knew the rules before you ever walked in” (don’t look at women leaving; keep accidental eye contact brief; don’t bring a toddler with you). The ultrasounds. Imagining what the child looks like at eleven weeks. The physical discomfort (Patterson draws a “self-portrait as not the giantess”), the beginnings of labor. Then she considers those first hours after birth.

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

“Sweet and Low,” poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

In My Dream of Emily Bronte – poem by Andrea Potos at Every Day Poems.

 

Where to Store Secrets That Don’t Belong to You – poem by Heather Cadenhead at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

The night cometh – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader. 

Time Will Tell: Collected Poems by David Middleton – review by Richard Wakefield at New Verse Review.

Some Monday Readings

A Splendid Poem: Richard Garland’s Epic Flight – James Marten at Emerging Civil War. 

Mythologizing the Mythmakers: Tolkien’s “The Notion Club Papers” – Bradley Birzer at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Burnham and Grant: American Jeremiahs – Geoff Russ at Modern Age Journal.

 

The Killer and the Harlot: Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

It’s Never Too Much. It’s Only Not Enough – Greg Sullivan at Sippican Cottage on a childhood friend.

 

The idea of a college – David Butterfield at New Criterion.

 

Reform can’t make Britain Christian again – Jimmy Nicholls at The Critic Magazine.

David looks back

After 2 Samuel 23:1-7 

He looks back and sees

the sheep on the hillside,

the prophet with his oil,

the giant taunting the army,

the five stones in his hand,

the days of serving the king

who hated him, the king’s son

who loved him, the hiding

in the wilderness, the death

of the king, his own crowning,

the battles continuing,

the woman on the rooftop

whose husband he had killed,

the growing of the kingdom,

the son who rebelled,

the victories, the defeats,

the songs he wrote,

the prayers he prayed,

the God he served.

It always comes back

to the God he served.

 

Photograph by Liliia via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

Be an Iceberg Christian – David Mathis at Desiring God.

 

Anne Bradstreet: Stirring Poems of a Puritan Wife – Tiffany Brannan at The Epoch Times.

 

What is the Biblical Way of Progress? – Glen Scrivener at The Gospel Coalition.

 

Should Christians Feel Guilty for Being Patriotic? – Sean DeMar at 9Marks.

 

Laugh It Off: Bearing ridicule well points to the wisdom of the cross – Elizabeth Stice at Comment.

Saturday Good Reads - Feb. 28, 2026

I’m not a big hockey fan, but I cheered along with (most of) the rest of America when the USA team defeated Canada and won the gold medal in the Olympics in Milan. The algorithms at Facebook and Instagram noted my interest and filled my feeds with reels, posts, photos and news reports. And then came the Huffington Post and its coverage. I suppose there will always be one Ebenezer Scrooge shouting “Bah! Humbug!” 

When the American Revolution began, colonists had a choice – join, resist, or stay out of it. Quakers usually avoided participation, but one, Abraham Carlile of Philadelphia, chose active support of the British when they occupied the city. When the British army abandoned the city the following year, Carlile remained, believing he’d doing nothing wrong. And that decision turned out to be a mistake.

 

If you’re interested in Medieval history, you might be interested in what Andrew Roycroft is starting at New Grub Street. He’s beginning a series on the Medieval period, starting with a discussion of Piers Plowman by William Langland. I haven’t read the poem since taking English literature in college some 50 years ago, and I think I’ll revisit it.

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

Philadelphia’s President House – Phil Greenwalt at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

The Genius of America: Our Constitution – Eric Lane and Michael Oreskes at American Heritage.

 

The Breaking of Maryland’s “Old Line” – Drew Palmer at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

Jefferson’s Words for a Fractured Country – Jonathan Horn at The Free Press.

 

Reluctant Ally: The Dutch Republic and the American Revolution – Nicholas Marsella at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

American Stuff

 

James K. Polk and the 5,106 Votes That Changed America – Walter Borneman at The Coolidge Review.

 

America Is the West. Is Europe? – Spencer Klavan at The New Jerusalem. 

 

British Stuff

 

The Decline of Classical Liberal Policing in Britain and its Former Dominions – Martin George Holmes at Insomnia Quarterly.

 

Why is Andrew “not above the law”? – Stephen McAlpine.

 

Art

 

The Monet Line – Jeffrey Streeter at English Republic of Letters.

 

Life and Culture

 

Every Child is Born a Person: Classical Education for All – Aimee Davis at Front Porch Republic.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Writing Is Pain, but Environment Can Help – Trevin Wax at The Gospel Coalition.

 

Poetry

 

57 – Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

“On Mites (To a Lady),” poem by Stephen Duck – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“On Barn,” poem by Jeanetta Calhoun Mish – Benjamin Myers at HPPR Poets on the Plains.

 

Life and Death – Paul Cardell

 Painting: Lady Reading lit by an Attic, oil on canvas by Pol Friis Nybo (1869-1929).