• Plough is the rare magazine I read cover to cover and the latest issue is no exception.

  • Well, the forthcoming book has a title, Plundered: The Tangled Roots of Racial and Environmental Injustice.

    Here are some of the assumptions behind the title.

  • Christmas afternoon walk along the Lake Michigan breakwater.

  • From this morning’s sermon: “We plan calendars; God plans galaxies. We plan timelines; God plans lifetimes. We plan appointments; God plans seasons. We plan long-term strategies; God plans from alpha to omega. We plan tasks and to-do lists, God plans the overthrow of sin, death, and the devil.”

  • The fog covering Chicago today has Jackson Park looking especially evocative.

    The lagoon in Chicago’s Jackson Park blanketed with fog.

  • It was 13° during my walk through Jackson Park this morning and this American Kestrel was using its beautiful down coat effectively against the wind.

  • Always lovely to return home to some highly anticipated mail.

  • Views from the drive home. Such an interesting and perplexing country we share, isn’t it? See you next time, Tennessee.

  • I’ve been reflecting on the tendency to reduce grievous complexity to simple binaries. I think, for some, it has to do with emotional immaturity born of cultural privilege.

  • Testing out the new balaclava today with the hope of extending the bike commute deeper into Chicago’s chilly months.

  • Jackson Park looking seasonally splendid this morning.

  • A beautiful morning for a walk through Jackson Park.

  • A couple of my companions during my walk through Jackson Park this morning.

  • Lake Geneva, WI looking good in the morning light.

  • A leisurely walk through Jackson Park on a drizzly Chicago morning.

  • Got to hang out with a couple of ruby-throated hummingbirds during my walk this afternoon.

  • On the hottest day of the year, the only reasonable thing to do was to take an after-supper bike ride to the lake for a quick dip before grabbing some ice cream on the way home.

  • A fun first for us last night: watching our 9th-grader play his first JV soccer game under the lights.

  • The stack accompanying me as I begin the last chapter of the first draft.

  • In my latest newsletter I’m learning from W.E.B. Du Bois about priorities.

    “By refusing to spend our time rehashing debates that people like Du Bois won generations ago, we can devote ourselves to the good and creative work of nurturing communities and cultures of repair and flourishing.”

  • In his intro to Black Reconstruction, Du Bois does something we need more of. He acknowledges the unwillingness by some to deal in truth (“he regards the Negro as a distinctly inferior creation”), commits to ignoring them (“I’m not trying to convince”), and gets down to business.

  • Stopped for pizza on a restaurant patio yesterday in Western Michigan. Beautiful evening and we’re surrounded by people on devices: parents, kids, etc.

    Whatever we think about tech and social norms, it feels like we’re being formed to more easily relate with machines than people.

  • I’m approaching the halfway point for the first draft of the second book. Here are some of my conversation partners for the fifth chapter.

  • A handsome northern flicker on this morning’s walk through Jackson Park.

  • A handsome northern flicker on this morning’s walk through Jackson Park.

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