Category Archives: Uncategorized

I’ve got a confession to make. And perhaps in the iconic words of Dave Grohl, “I’m your fool.” Perhaps, but while the month of January often gets labeled the annual dumping ground for films stuidos don’t think will succeed elsewhere, that get auomatically written off by critics and don’t get seen by audiences, I haveContinue reading “Dumping Ground Or Underappreciated: Why I’m a Fan of January At The Movies”

“The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” (Mark 1:1) What’s in a word. In this case the Greek word arche, translated as “beginning.” Turns out quite a bit.  According to biblical scholar James R. Edwards, the formal introduction to the Gospel of Mark takes the common course of patterned ancientContinue reading “What’s In a Word: Beginnings, Endings, and New Beginnings in the Gospel of Mark”

The goal for me heading into a new year is never an exhaustive reading plan or “to read” list. It’s simply locating a place to start. I find most of the time this emerges from the natural outflow of where my reading year in 2025 brought me. What themes and stories and directions it findsContinue reading “Looking Ahead: A Place To Start My Reading in 2026”

If you had asked me 3 months ago, I would have said this has been an exceptionally bare and down year for film. Thankfully some of the fall titles managed to rise to the top, even giving us some genuine success stories. Leading the way would of course be Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle AfterContinue reading “End of the Year Reflections: Top Films of 2025”

The Stats: Total Books Read: 179 Shortest Book Read: The Grand Miracle (60 Pages) Longest Book Read: The Path Between The Seas by David McCullough (698 pages) The Breakdown of How I read: The Ratings (out of 5): Looking at my stats for this year, I feel really good about physical books still  leading theContinue reading “Top Reads of 2025”

“All stories have a meanwhile- an important thing that’s happening while the rest of the story moves along.” (How To Read a Book, Monica Wood) “But the rewards of a journey aren’t always immediate and aren’t always manifest. The point is, should we count milestones or miles? And the truth is I learned a lotContinue reading “End of the Year Reflections: The Story of My Reading Journey in 2025”

What is Rosebud A number of years ago I started a New Years Resolution Plan called Rosebud. I heard about it on one of the travel podcasts that I follow. The process essentially looks like this:Step 1: List Three Roses-This is the stuff that I would consider the greatest strengths, successes or accomplishments of theContinue reading “Rosebud 2026: A Conversation About Resolutions In the New Year”

There’s an anonymous quote from Nadiyka’ Gerbish’s book A Ukrainian Christmas, a book I finished this Christmas morning as I sit waiting for the family to get up (along with 8 cups of coffee, two more books, three christmas films and this blog post) that goes, “Light never fights darkness, but overcomes it with itsContinue reading “Making Everyday as Sacred as Christmas: Learning from History, Tradition, and Ukrainian Christmas”

In the most recent episode of the Give and Take podcast, titled The Gospels as History, with Edward J. Watts (#315), host Scott Jones talks with Watts about his “Gospel maximalist” approach to the story of Jesus, (a discussion he qualifies as a holiday themed episode) Watts is coming at this as a historian who’sContinue reading “The Gospels as Words, The Gospels as Narrative: How the History of These Compositions Brings Us Closer to Jesus”

I don’t know what happened on the mountain but something deep has changed. Cause who I was is not who I’m becoming, I’m not the man who came. I found love like I never thought I would. I found love like I never thought I could. But it didn’t happen the way I was alwaysContinue reading “End of the Year Reflections: How I went From The Waters to the Brain and What it is Teaching Me About The Nature of the World”