At one point in T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, the speaker has a rather Dantean meeting with one of his long-dead teachers.  Of course, he is

As I was driving around town today—taking a break from grading by buying a few last-minute Christmas presents—I saw the billboards announcing that MegaMillions is

I had a different topic in mind for this week’s blog, but I have come back again and again to the poem below in the

I’m very much looking forward to Thanksgiving next week.  It’s definitely my favorite holiday, hands-down.  Of course, I love the food (and the break from

When going through some of my mother’s papers, I discovered a very old church newsletter she had kept.  That particular issue featured a column in

I’m very proud to have as my guest on the blog today my student Alexander Westenbroek.  Alex is from Grand Rapids and is pursuing a

“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”

One of my fondest childhood memories is the weekly bringing home of an enormous stack of books from the library and heaping it next to

For many years, I walked my dog pretty much every day with one of my closest friends and her dog.  In every season.  No matter