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And above all, watch with glitering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” (The Minpins, Roald Dahl) They often say, don’t meet your heros. It’s no secret that meeting our childhood stories can haveContinue reading “Growing Up Into My Childhood Stories: A Pilgrimage to Dahl”

The last time I was on a plane was 12 years ago. It was the summer of 2014, and we were on our way (from Winnipeg) to Kyiv, embarking on the next phase of our adoption journey 12 years doesn’t feel like a long time in one respect, but planning my recent trip to EnglandContinue reading “All Roads Lead From London: Notes From A Pilgrimage”

I’m sitting in our upstairs room by the printer, slowly and methodically printing pages off for my upcoming trip, now one day and one sleep away. Pages of walking directions in an effort to ensure my first day there, an early morning arrival, is as prepared as possible. These walking directions are the product ofContinue reading “A Trip in the Making and the Planning: When Turning 50 Means Finally Growing Up Into My Childhood”

“Why won’t God communicate in a way we can understand.” This is the question Odysseus poses to Athena as he seeks to understand the tension of a world, his world, bound to such suffering and seeking hope for it’s restoration. For Odysseus, his journey is a physical one, but his pilgrimage is internal, and whatContinue reading “Nolan’s The Odyssey and the Hope of A Transformed Life and World”

8 days That’s how many days I went without watching a single film. More if you include the days leading up to my departure. And technically counting. That might not sound like a big deal, but for me it’s very much out of the ordinary. So much so that, upon returning from my trip, IContinue reading “Arthur, Galahad and The Odyssey: How The Invention of the Classics Distances Us From the Enduring Power of Story”

Just because I continue to enjoy connecting my books, figured I would look at my June reads through the lens of specific pairings: The Tower and the Ruin: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Creation (Michael DC Drout) and Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading (Lucy Mangan) In The Tower and the Ruin, Drout spends a good deal ofContinue reading “My Reading Journey: The Month of June”

Exploring the meaning of Coleridge’s great poem, Malcolm Guite writes, Sometimes I spend time fleshing out thoughts in my head. Other times I just need to get them down on paper so they can perculate. This quote was one of them. But the more I think about it, the more restless it is making me,Continue reading “Coleridge, The Romantics, and What It Means to Dicover Our Childhoods In the Face of Nationhood”

In his book The Affections of Christ Jesus: Love at the Heart of Paul’s Theology, scholar Nijay Gupta weighs in on the significance of a Pauline corpus which, giving little to no mention of the ministry of Jesus that is the central focus of the Gospels, defines itself according to its awareness of and concernContinue reading “The Affections of Christ Jesus and The Vision of Ephesians: Finding Love at the Intersection of Paul and Jesus”

Capturing this milestone in my book logging by marking the book: The Gospel of Being Human: How Asking Better Questions of the Bible Reveals Who We Are by Marty Solomon and Reed Dent If Marty Solomon’s Asking Better Questions of the Bible: A Guide for the Wounded, Wary, and Longing for More navigated the precariousContinue reading “Milestones and Important Books: The Gospel of Being Human at 1300 Books and Almost 50 Years of Living”

“This is a book for adults. More specifically, this is a book for adults about books for children.” In the opening pages of his new book on the nature of children’s literature and why it matters to both children and adults, Barnett establishes the neccessary rule for the ensuing discussion: “When it comes to children’sContinue reading “The Classics and the Children: Finding The Necessary Conversation Between My Child and Adult Selves in Mary Beard’s Talking Classics and Marc Barnett’s Make Believe”