Articles

Live like a Tree

I am an unlikely localist. My life is a product of globalization. My mother’s side of the family is from Singapore, China, and India,...

The Cornhusker Berryian: Ben Sasse’s Argument for Rootedness

It was said of the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) that he had written more books than most senators had read.  Senator Ben...

Thomas Merton’s Contemplative Politics

Fifty years ago today, Thomas Merton died suddenly during a visit to Thailand. During the past few months, I’ve been thinking about the ways...

The Local Game

The baseball season has ended. For fans just about everywhere outside of Boston, this will signal either melancholy or relief. Or possibly disgust. Melancholy...

Dear Eugene

One of my heroes of the faith is dead. Eugene Peterson experienced death, but certainly not its sting, as he uttered his final words,...

We Need a lot More than Romance

When I came across John Hockenberry’s essay, “Exile,” in the October edition of Harper’s Magazine, I had never heard of him. I still know little...

Canon Fodder I: Uncle Remus

New Castle, Kentucky. We can't talk about the economy all the time, or anyway I can't.  Today instead I want to sing a song of the...

Walking in a Dead Man’s Shoes

A woman in another kind of grief uttered the terrible “should have been.”

Cultivating the Candy Roaster: An Extensive Pleasure

In the spring of this year, some students and I created a modest Heritage Garden—420 square feet of raised beds built from two-by-twelves and...

In Pursuit of Jimmie Ricker’s Farm

It was hard to resist. John Harrigan’s portrait of Great North Woods stump farmer Jimmie Ricker in our local newspaper compelled me to drive...