The Scouring of the Shire, the penultimate chapter of The Lord of the Rings, is often ignored. Peter Jackson left it out of the films, and readers...
Why the Scouring of the Shire?
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Lenten Readings
In many ways, Lent is a more difficult period for selecting devotional readings than Advent is. The biblical themes surrounding Advent are clear,...
What Scripture Never Tells Us
The Bible doesn’t tell us much if anything about people’s internal states—their emotions, psychology, motives, and thoughts—except through reporting...
Asking the Right Questions
C.S. Lewis says that nature tends to answer the questions we ask her. He argues that the change from the medieval to the modern worldview did not...
Living Today in Light of Eternity
As we head into 2026, it's a good time to take stock of our lives and think about adjustments to make in the coming year. But it's important to...
Plymouth, 1621
We're all familiar with the traditional story of the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving. We're also probably familiar with the revisionist attempts...
Where Are We From? The Search for Roots
Our culture today suffers from liquid modernity, where mindsets and institutions dissolves all of the things on which we have historically built our...
Vampires in New England
There were a number of vampire scares in New England in the late 1700s to late 1800s. This article includes accounts of some of them and an...
Cursing Charlie Kirk
Jezebel Magazine paid to have Charlie Kirk hexed. What should we think about this, and what does it say about our culture’s growing shift toward...
C.S. Lewis on Reality, Truth, and Myth
I have started a substack page where I will be writing primarily about disenchantment, dark enchantment, and Christian reenchantment. I will be...
Addison’s Walk
On September 19, 1931, 94 years ago today, three friends had a conversation on Addison’s Walk, a tree-lined path on the grounds of Magdalen...
We’re at War, but Who is the Enemy?
The murders of Iryna Zarutska and Charlie Kirk are connected by more than politics. In this substack article I explore the spiritual dimensions at...
St. Helena and the True Cross
September 14 is the Feast of the Cross. Celebrated by Catholics (Latin and Eastern Rites), Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, the Church of the East,...
Imagination and Truth
Our world today is facing a crisis of meaning that is rooted to a large extent in a crisis of truth. To understand this and to find a way out, we...
Enchantment: A Word Ramble
Poet and etymologist John Ciardi used to do word rambles, where he would take a word, trace its origins, and show direct and indirect connections to...