Where wisdom is not

After James 3:13-18 

If you see jealousy,

if you experience it 

yourself, you will

not find wisdom.

If you feel selfish

ambition in your heart,

a desire for glory,

recognition, praise 

of others, you will

not find wisdom.

Jealousy and selfish

ambition produce

disorder and vileness.

That’s the wisdom

of this world, unspiritual;

that’s the wisdom

of this world, demonic. 

 

Photograph by Priscilla Du Preez via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

Eusebius, Early Christianity’s Historian – Michael De Sapio at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

“She Prays,” poem by Ella Higginson – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

The Distance We Keep – Michael Mellette at Mockingbird.

 

The Life God Didn’t Let You Live – Katie Kaitkep. 

Poets and Poems: Diana Lockward and “The Color Wheel”

I don’t recall where I read it, but some blogger or publication or Substack posted a poetry prompt: write about a color without ever mentioning the name of it. It’s both easier and harder than it looks. To make it more difficult, try writing a poem about a color with mentioning the color or an associated feeling or emotion. 

An exercise like that does make you immediately aware of the importance color can have in poetry and even in everyday conversation. We feel blue. We see red. We’re in the pink. That potato salad made me feel green. His mood was black. 

 

Poet, editor, and publisher Diana Lockward says she’s long had an attraction to poems that use color. Over the years, she kept a folder of poems that did exactly that. And then, she had an idea – an anthology of poems that make strategic use of color. She put out a call for submissions. 

 

And poets responded. At least 117 of them did, and likely more, each by a different poet. And The Color Wheel: Poems was born. And the result is, well, more diverse and colorful than you might expect.

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

Some Thursday Readings

“The Ballad of the Dead Ladies,” poem by Dante Gabirel Rossetti – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

“The Cottage on the Ridge” and “The Garden Hermit’s Confession” – poems at Martin Rizley at Society of Classical Poets.

 

“And if I Did, What Then?”, poem by George Gascoigne – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

The Strangest First Day on the Job I Ever Had

I felt more than a little apprehension. I was in morning rush hour traffic, driving to downtown St. Louis from the close-in suburb where I lived. It was something of a new experience. I hadn’t driven in rush-hour traffic since leaving Houston 25 years earlier. The apprehension wasn’t about traffic; I had stepped outside my career experience and accepted a job with St. Louis Public Schools. And I was early; the hours were 8 to 5, but I decided to be there by 7:30. 

Except for nine months at a newspaper straight out of college, my career had been exclusively corporate communications: employee communications, crisis communications, media relations, environmental communications, and speechwriting. Especially speechwriting. Even for the three years I had had my own consulting business, I worked for companies, doing mostly speechwriting. 

 

Corporations have their moments of craziness and crisis, but they pale in comparison to urban school districts. And yet, here I was, driving to my first day on the job at the largest school district in the state of Missouri, a district that had been in crisis for years and was now in hyper-crisis. 

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

Photograph via St. Louis Public Schools.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

End Game at Appomattox – Mike Phifer at Warfare History Network. 

 

Millennials Tried Being Angry. It Didn’t Work – Samuel D. James at Digital Liturgies.

 

A Memo in the Wilderness: Why does the Church of England now sound like an HR department? – James Martin Charlton at the Critic Magazine.

Poets and Poems: Joanne Esser and "Nothing Is Stationary"

Something happens when you read a poetry collection, while you watch soft rainfall outside the kitchen window, raindrops making tiny splashes in the birdbath. The birds have taken cover somewhere. So have the squirrels, especially the one who likes to dig up the zinnias. The young rabbit who finds the rose bush – with all its thorns! – delicious is missing. And you find yourself slipping into reflection.  

If the poetry collection is one like Nothing Is Stationary, the new publication by Joanne Esser, your reflections are not only sharpened but also take you down paths you didn’t expect to go. Esser is realizing that most of her life is behind her, and she’s thinking about where she came from and where she is. 

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

The Sowers – poem by Gabriele D’Annunzio.

 

Mr. Pope – Poem by Allen Tate at Academy of American Poets.

 

“Dover Beach,” poem by Matthew Arnold – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Dark Green, Forest Green – poem by Linda Nemec Foster at Every Day Poems.

 

Stern Shoots Marilyn – poem by Mauren Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

 

“Sheep,” poem by W.H. Davies – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient an Modern.

 

“The City of Ephesus” by Sandra Glahn

Today, the city of Ephesus may be mostly ruins investigated by archaeologists and tourists. But at one time, it was the chief city of what we call Asia Minor. Rome made it the capital of the province of Asia, and it was an important center of religious worship of the goddess Diana or Artemis.  

Ephesus was also a significant setting for the Apostle Paul’s missionary journeys. In the Book of Acts, it’s known for a riot caused by silversmiths angered by Paul’s healing of a possessed slave girl, for Paul’s letter to the church there, and his farewell discussion with the Ephesian elders, the one in which he warned about the wolves devouring the lambs. Timothy ministered there.

 

Dr. Sandra Glahn, who’s written more than 20 books and aims to make research accessible, has written The City of Ephesus: A Short History, a concise, well-written account of the story of Ephesus, focusing on the period from 100 B.C. to 100 A.D. 

 

Glahn details the importance of the temple of Artemis. The goddess was believed to protect the city, women in childbirth, and even a protector of wealth, serving as something like a depository. People came, she writes, from Europe, Asia, and Egypt to pay homage. When Paul cast the demon from the slave girl, it didn’t take much for the girl’s owner, resenting the loss of income, to transfer his anxiety to the silversmiths who profited from the Artemis cult.

 

She details the social, political, and religious contexts for the city during the 200 years between 100 B.C. and 100 A.D. And then she briefly describes what happened to Ephesus after the time of Paul. 

Sandra Glahn

 

Glahn has published a number of Bible studies on the books of Jonah, Ruth, Judges, Esther, Song of Solomon, Malachi, Luke, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians; the letters to the seven churches in Revelation and the Sermon on the Mount; several books on women’s issues; and even novels. She had a column on Substack and her own blog. Her podcast on Youtube is called The Chick Report with Dr. Sandra Glahn. She also conducts student tours or workshops in Italy, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and Calvin College’s Festival of Faith and Writing.

 

The City of Ephesus isn’t an exhaustive study of the city and the times in which it flourished. But succeeds, and succeeds well, in its aim to provide a detailed overview. 

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Murders for June – Jeremy Black at The Critic Magazine.

 

Willa Cather’s The Professor’s House: A Redemptive, Modern Novel – Daniel Sundahl at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

The 120^th Anniversary of Vauxhall Bridge – A London Inheritance.

 

The Stamp Act and the American Revolution – Kyler Burd at Journal of the American Revolution.

The source of wisdom

After James 3:13-18 

Where does wisdom

come from? Does it

arise from years

of study and

research, from

experience, from

living day to day?

Whi is wise

among you? Is

wisdom crowdsourced?

 

Wisdom comes from

above; it’s the only

source. It’s displayed

by your conduct, by

its own meekness. It

doesn’t boast; it’s not

false to what’s true.

Wisdom comes from

outside you; it comes

from above. 

 

Photograph by Alex Shute via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

Labour and Legacy – Jeremy Walker at The Wanderer.

 

Gen Z and Belonging to the Church – Alan Noble.

 

A Sonnet for Trinity Sunday – Malcolm Guite.

Saturday Good Reads – May 30, 2026

I don’t select my “favorite story of the week,” but if I did, this one would be it. If you read nothing else here today, or anywhere else, read this. Bring tissues. And feel gratitude, and perhaps some wonder: Judson’s Last Ride by Sean Trende. 

You have a book idea. You start researching and perhaps even writing. You’re excited about it. And then, in a bookstore or an online column or post, you see it. Someone has already published a book that sounds like what you’re working on. Your response is something like feeling all four of your car tires deflate at once. What do you do? Writing coach Ann Kroker has some suggestions.

 

The controversy over writing and artificial intelligence continues to rage. A prizewinning article in a literary magazine that may actually have been written by AI. Books in which quotations of other works turn out to be invented by AI, Books written partially or more than partially by AI programs. Writing using what suspiciously looks like AI-pirated plagiarism. But with all this, not unusual when a new technology is developed, Joel Miller suggests that perhaps writers are focused on the wrong AI battle.

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

Why 1776 matters to modern Britain – Clement Knox at The Critic Magazine.

 

This Jewish Community in the Caribbean Smuggled Gunpowder to the Patriots During the Revolution – John Hanc at Smithsonian Magazine.

 

The Sound of Independence – Lois Bliss Herbine at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

The Constitutionalism of The Federalist Papers – William Allen at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Treason on the Floor: Patrick Henry’s Defiant Challenge to King George – Jason Clark at This Is the Day.

 

Faith

 

What’s Wrong With Boys? – R. Scott Clark at The Heidelblog.

 

American Stuff

 

Property No More: The Quiet Emancipation of Dred Scott – Jason Clark at This Is the Day.

 

Dolley Madison’s World – Catherine Allgor at American Heritage.

 

The Lobby, Fox Theater – Chris Naffziger at St. Louis Patina.

 

Writing and Literature

 

The Return of Buccmaster – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abby of Misrule.

 

An Ounce of Clarity vs a Pound of Cleverness – Samuel D. James at Digital Liturgies.

 

Film

 

“Les Miserables:” A Rousing Tale for Slumbering Souls – Barbara Elliott at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

News Media

 

Stephen Colbert Didn’t Get Cancelled – Mass Culture Did – Aaron Renn.

 

The Media’s Inversion pf Hezbollah’s War Against Israel – John Spencer t the Mir Yam Institute.

 

Poetry

 

“Sea-Shell Murmurs,” poem by Eugene Lee-Hamilton and “The Ecchoing Green,” poem by William Blake – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

The Bell Ringer – David Whyte.

 

Life and Culture

 

The Dignity of Dependence: How the Vulnerabilities We Share Become the Ties That Bind – Alisa Ruddell at Front Porch Republic.

 

Christ Our Hope in Life and Death – Jordan Kauflin

 Painting: Books and Reading, illustration by Norman Rockwell (1894-1978).  

Tongue as predator

After James 3:1-12 

The tongue is a restless

predator, wandering

the landscape, seeking

its food, the unsuspecting

and the nourishing; 

this predator is hungry

for nourishment. It is

an evil, restless; it is

full of poison, a toxic

instrument of destruction,

which can bless and curse

simultaneously. No salt

sea can produce fresh water;

no fig tree bears olives. 

No human can control

a tongue, especially

one’s own. It lashes,

it destroys, it demeans,

it insults, it undermines,

it reduces, it erodes,

it exhausts, it makes

its object less than it is

by elevating itself.

 

Photograph by Lukas Vanatko via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

Turn the Other Cheek – Jason Clark at This is Jason.

 

Sundays for the Young Son of a Theologically Conservative Pastor – Jon Wildeman at Front Porch Republic.

 

“Ploughman,” poem by Patrick Kavanagh – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

One Day, God Will Wipe Away His People’s Tears – Randy Alcorn.

 

Feeding – poem by Seth Lewis.

Writing Poetry: "The Art of the Almost Said" by Robert Hudson

It’s one of the most intriguing definitions of Poetry that I’ve read. “Poetry,” writes Robert Hudson, “is for people who have something genuine, heartfelt, interesting, or quirky to say.” He goes on to say who the intended audience poetry is: “It should be written for people who ride the bus, work the late shift, bag the leaves, or play vide games … people who send birthday cards, struggle with their weight, forget to take their meds, tuck in the kids, check Facebook, and drive the dog to the vet.” 

And then he throws done the gauntlet: “…unless poetry makes sense to us ordinary folks, it’s not poetry. It’s just highbrow puzzle constructing.”

 

Hudson’s The Art of the Almost Said: The Christian Writer’s Guide to Writing Poetry may be aimed at Christians, but’s a poetry how-to guide for all of us. 

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

Some Thursday Readings

 

Something understood: How to read poetry – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

“Radio,” poem by Harriet Monroe – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“On Shakespeare,” poem by John Milton – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

The Strangest Job Interview I Ever Had

I was cleaning out some old files when I came across a small blue address book – the kind we used before iPhones had contact lists, or even before we had iPhones. It dates from 2003. When I looked at the listings, I realized I was holding an artifact of my career. 

Between October of 2003 and May of 2004, I was Director of Communications for St. Louis Public Schools. The school district, with many of the problems of an urban school district, had been in upheaval since June. A reform board had been elected, and it had promptly hired an outside management firm from New York to design and implement a total overhaul. It wasn’t a simple reorganization; instead, think Elon Musk’s Department of Governmental Efficiency without the charm.

 

On its first day, the outside firm discovered that the district wasn’t technically but actually bankrupt. Suddenly, change came. Schools were closed and consolidated. Hundreds of staff positions had been eliminated. Operations were outsourced. Chaos and protests were the watchwords. As in, daily chaos and protests.

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

Photograph by Chelaxy Designs via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Brutality & Compassion: Howard Pyle’s “Otto of the Silver Hand” – David Deavel at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

What If the World is Enchanted? – Zak Schmoll.

 

The Right Stuff: President Washington Needed a General in 1792 – Bradley Crytzer at Journal of the American Revolution.

Poets and Poems: Angela Alaimo O’Donnell and “The View from Childhood”

We all have childhood and family stories, good ones, bad ones, and usually some of each. Childhood shapes us, helping us be the adults we eventually become. We learn things, directly and indirectly, by living in the families we have. 

In The View from Childhood: Poems, Angela Alaimo O’Donnell takes both a candid and loving look at her Italian Catholic immigrant family. It’s a loving look, one that includes thankfulness to her elder siblings for introducing her to serious poetry (she says she originally wanted to be an opera singer). But like all families, there are things you don’t want to learn and prefer not to see. But they’re there, and you learn to come to terms with them. 

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

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Orthodoxy – poem by Scott Cairns at The Rabbit Room.

 

Praise Song for My Mother – Andrea Potos at Every Day Poems.

 

The Charge of the Light Brigade – poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson at Every Day Poems.

“A Summer Shadow” by H.L. Marsay

The summer is unusually and rather miserably hot for York in northern England. Detective Chief Inspector John Shadow of the York Police is attending a cricket game. Cricket happens to be about the only sport he enjoys watching. And being outside has the advantage of catching whatever cool breezes might unexpectedly arise. His detective sergeant, Jimmy Chang, is there as well. 

And the during a break in the game, the elderly man who’d been serving as scorekeeper is discovered dead in the scorekeeper’s shed. And rather gruesomely murdered, in fact. At first glance, Shadow wonders who could possibly have wanted to kill an elderly man who was simply keeping score.

 

 H L Marsay

As Shadow and Chang will learn in A Summer Shadow, the ninth DCI John Shadow mystery by H L Marsay, the list of suspects is longer than one might initially think. It turns out that the man, a retired city planning officer, had something of a habit of expecting bribes from developers, and then, after retirement, expecting payment from people he was blackmailing. It almost becomes a case of who isn’t on the list of suspects.

 

It’s a fast-paced, entertaining story, with enough twists and turns to keep a slalom skier on constant alert. The case takes on an entirely different turn when a skeleton is discovered in the basement of the former newspaper building – and it might possibly be related to the death of the cricket scorekeeper.

 

A member of the Crime Writers Association, Marsay lives with her family in the city of York in England. She’s also published The Secrets of Hartwell trilogy and The Lady in Blue mysteries. 

 

A Summer Shadow shares a number of characteristics with its eight predecessors – a DCI who is curmudgeonly on a good day, an irrepressible detective sergeant who keeps his bubbly charm intact no matter what his boss throws at him, and a stop at one if not several York restaurants. It’s great fun.

 

Related: 

A Long Shadow by H L Marsay.

A Viking’s Shadow by H L Marsay.

A Ghostly Shadow by H L Marsay.

 A Roman Shadow by H.L. Marsay.

A Forgotten Shadow by H L Marsay.

A Christmas Shadow by H L Marsay.

A Stolen Shadow by H.L. Marsay.

A Saxon Shadow by H L Marsay.

Betrayal at the Old Hall by H L Marsay.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Calvin Coolidge, Christianity, & the American Founding – Nathaniel Urban at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Why did police handcuff Henry Nowak? – Andrew Tettenborn at The Spectator.

 

Soiled Work – Adam Gustine at Comment Magazine.

 

Ground Zero in the Reading Crisis – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Whistler in Wapping – Spitalfields Life.

The tongue as metaphor

After James 3:1-12 

Of all the works of man,

none is so powerful as

the tongue. It does

great good, and it does

great harm. If we teach,

we must remember

it is the tongue which

makes us stumble. It

guides the whole person,

like the bit in the horse’s

mouth, like the rudder

of a ship, like the fire

in the forest, the fire

that provides heat 

in the cold and destruction

among the trees and brush.

The tongue can be tamed,

but only as an act of God;

none of us can tame

our tongues.

 

Photograph by Izzy Park via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

Our Mother-tongue is Live: A Sonnet for Pentecost – Malcolm Guite.

 

Steve McQueen, born again, set free – Patrick Luscri. 

 

Even Now, God Can Rescue Your Prodigal – Jill Noble at Desiring God.

Saturday Good Reads - May 23, 2026

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were political enemies, and often bitter ones at times. After Jefferson left the presidency in early 1809, he and Adams began a correspondence that, while it didn’t heal all the old political wounds, it did create a mutual respect. But as Marianne Holdzkom at the Conversation points out, they still disagreed about the American Revolution’s meaning even as they lay dying. And they both died on July 4, 1826, the 50^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which is usually connected to Jefferson, but which Adams played a hidden hand in.

Charles Dickens was famous for his “night walks,” in which he roamed the streets of London when he couldn’t sleep. He discovered that his own restlessness was mirrored in the restlessness of London, and he came upon scenes and people which inspired some of his stories. In 1860, in his magazine All the Year Round, he published an account of his might walks. It was later included in his collection The Uncommercial Traveler.

 

Speaking of Dickens, Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review – not the biggest fan of Dickens – gave another of the man’s works a go. He read A Tale of Two Cities, and he discovered a hidden architecture within the story.

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

Why Haldimand and Washington Fought Different Intelligence Wars – Ryan Wagner at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

The Preamble Before the Declaration – Jonathan Horn at The Free Press.

 

The People’s Declaration – Michael Auslin at The Patowmack Packet.

 

Captain James Wood, Diplomat – Eric Sterner at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

Benjamin Franklin and the Franco-American Alliance – Keli Holt at Just Enough History.

 

Writing and Literature

 

To vex the world: Jonathan Swift’s Frustrated Humor – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

American Stuff

 

Battle of Antietam: Clash in the Cornfield – Michael Haskew at Warfare History Network.

 

News Media

 

A Miscarriage of Journalism at The New York Times – Roy Altman at The Free Press.

 

Faith

 

A Veil Before the Eyes of the Enemy: On Tolkien, Foolishness, and the Ordinary Means of Grace – Caleb Wait at Modern Reformation.

 

Life and Culture

 

Some Conservative Thoughts on the Left of Today – Bradley Birzer at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

British Stuff

 

Museums in England largely oppose proposal to charge admission for foreign tourists – Gareth Harris at The Art Newspaper.

 

Poetry

 

“Ode to the Confederate Dead,” poem by Allen Tate – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

There Is a Fountain – The Village Chapel Worship

Painting: Reading Girl, oil on canvas by Franz Eybl (1806-1880).