Juggling multiple balls and faced with several challenges, another situation surfaced early Wednesday morning as I headed east to water the farm. I hadn’t driven a mile when the “service engine soon light” glowed brightly on the dashboard. I took a deep breath, said a prayer, and continued east. With zero rain in the last …
Category Archives: Mind
Let Me Give You a Definition of Ethics
“Let me give you a definition of ethics: it is good to maintain life and further life; it is bad to destroy and damage life.” So writes Dr. Albert Schweitzer in his 1933 autobiography “Out of My Life and Thought.” The recipient of the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Schweitzer offers other thoughts that came …
Things Are Just Fine
I usually reserve my “WTF” template for things I find oddly – and sometimes, sadly – funny that I pass on to a select group of people who I know can handle – and who appreciate – the “WTF” concept. I am making an exception today and sharing it with those who read The Vitruvian …
Courage and Commitment
Our school year in Haiti concludes this week with final exams. We are planning a small party for teachers and students. But as the week commences, we must adapt to the forces in play around us. I awoke this morning to this headline in Le Nouvelliste, the Haitian newspaper I read daily… “Cité Soleil: At …
I Am Not Ashamed
I am not ashamed. I recently read and listened to a talk Russell Moore presented in October 2021 at the Rabbit Room’s annual arts conference. The talk is featured on the Plough website, June 24, 2022. Dr. Moore is Public Theologian at Christianity Today and Director of Christianity Today’s Public Theology Project. Titled “Faith, Fiction, …
The Education Triangle Revisited
This post is updated from a post we published four years ago in May 2018. The ‘Education Triangle’ is a universal truth. What was true in 2018 remains true today, and it is the same truth that existed at Plato’s Academy in 387 B.C., and it will be true as we colonize Mars in the …
In God We Trust
I mulled over this post for weeks after I read the excellent article “The Sermon of the Wolf” by Eleanor Parker in the Summer 2022 issue of the Plough Quarterly. What encouraged me to complete the story was an article I read this morning – “The 1977 White House climate memo that should have changed …
Knucklebones
It was exactly 20 years ago (Flag Day 2002) when I chose to leave ‘corporate America’ to write a book. We published The Olympian, A Tale of Ancient Hellas six years later. It remains my ‘bestseller.’ Early in the story, Simonides and his traveling companions reach the harbor town of Itea and enter an inn …
Keep the Faith
The Book of Job is the 18th book of the Hebrew Bible. It is considered the first of five books of poetry in the Old Testament: Job – teaches us how to suffer Psalms – teach us how to pray Proverbs – teach us how to act Ecclesiastes – teaches us how to enjoy life …
Together
I read a Wendell Berry poem this morning, “They Sit Together on the Porch.” It reminded me of how it should be for people who have shared their lives for decades. Ten years ago when Mrs. tVM and I lived on the edge of the Saguaro National Park with little light pollution, we abandoned the …