The Fourth Wall

There’s a pumpkin sitting next to my yard waste bin that’s been there since late fall. It greets me every evening when I arrive home.  It’s Roy’s.  That is, it was the pumpkin that we purchased for him that he failed to carve.  On the evening that we carved pumpkins, an evening of cherished family…

This article first appeared on Good Faith Media. I’m working on paying attention to what I pay attention to.  Lately, I’ve wondered why we often find the most visceral versions of ourselves appear in the social media comments section. Why, in the anonymity offered through these platforms, do we permit instincts to govern our behaviors…

This article first appeared on Good Faith Media on February 4th, 2025. The long unredacted article can be found below. My father pastored a small town non-denominational church in northern Wisconsin.  In the 1990s, Tomahawk’s economic existence consisted of two paper mills and a Harley-Davidson plant.  I’ve frequently described my father’s parishioners as Flannery O’Conner…

This post originally appeared on Good Faith Media on 1/24/25. This the full version before it was edited. Stewarding Pathos: Mariann Edgard Budde’s Rhetoric Lesson  As I settled into my couch on Tuesday evening (1/21/25) I opened Facebook to discover what the cultural zeitgeist might hurl at me on President Trump’s first full day in…

This story originally appeared on Good Faith Media. This version is the full version that was not redacted for editorial/length purposes. Giséle Pelicot  A few weeks ago, the harrowing trial of Giséle Pelicot’s abusers concluded.  There are two ways to describe it.  Giséle was the object of unimaginable abuse.  Giséle is a feminist icon who…

First published with Good Faith Media Ostensibly, Duke Divinity theology professor emeritus Stanley Hauerwas once said, “A Christian could only ever run for public office one time. If their platform reflected the teachings of Jesus, they’d never get elected again.”  “Ostensibly” is a shaky way to begin an article. But as a Waco, Texas resident…

I once described Christian Wiman’s work as a reach for the ineffable. I sometimes wonder if he’d be annoyed by that description, but if there’s one thing that works about it, it is that ineffable implies that the object in question can’t be described and also that if one were to attempt, language, and more…

On October 23, New York Times reporter Rory Smith reported on a 10-year science experiment happening on a little piece of land curling out from the southwest coast of England. There, the Steart Marshes of Sommerset, are yielding exciting results. Ten years ago an environmental trust group and the British government got together to come…

Brian Doyle died over seven years ago.  I would have grieved then, but I didn’t know him or of him.  This book review then is really a guise for what I wish I could have told him in a letter.   Dear Brian Doyle,  Where were you hiding?  How were you hiding?  After taking a closer…

In our world of fleeting meaning there is a meme (I think it’s properly called a meme, but I’m unsure) that stands out.  It arrested me because of my experience with its truthfulness.  The meme features Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez hoisted on the shoulder of his Sandlot compadres.  The copy reads “At some point in…