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Job Frontispiece
I’m not sure what this says about my personality, but one of my favorite books growing up was Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. The Old Testament lectionary reading this week...
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Student Resilience and the Threat of Bad Grades
Yesterday, Megan Von Bergen published a helpful essay on learning. There was also an interesting article by Peter Gray over at Psychology Today on the lack of emotional resilience in the student...
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Out of the Whirlwind, Where Were You
Last week, we reflected on Job’s desire for God to speak to him, and this week, we read the scene a few chapters later where Job gets his wish. The manner in which God speaks to Job, however, probably...
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Out of the Whirlwind, He Will Wipe Every Tear
The lectionary reading this week brings us to the end of Job, where Job responds to God’s questions by repenting and humbling himself. While Job’s perplexities concerning divine justice have not been...
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Ruth and Naomi
The Old Testament lectionary readings this week and next come from Ruth, a brief but moving book that receives two lush illuminations in The Saint John’s Bible. The story’s happy ending sometimes leads...
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Ruth the Gleaner
Last week we looked at the beginning of Ruth, where Naomi, burdened with the loss of her husband and two sons, returns to Israel. While she feels that life has turned against her, Ruth’s faithful...
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Hannah’s Prayer
The Old Testament lectionary reading this week comes from I Samuel, and it gives us an opportunity to consider one of the many textual treatments in The Saint John’s Bible. These comprise works of art...
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Genealogy of Jesus
Over the next three weeks, we’ll look at three of the Advent-related images in The Saint John’s Bible. The first one, which forms the frontispiece to the gospel of Matthew, calls us to attend to one of...
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Word Made Flesh
Word Made Flesh, Donald Jackson, Copyright 2002, The Saint John’s Bible, Saint John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota. Used by permission. All rights reserved. For this second week of Advent, we...
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The Birth of Christ
In this final Advent reflection, we turn to the illumination of Christ’s birth at the beginning of Luke. The bright gold of this image announces, like the angels’ hymn, the glory of God that enters the...
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Symposium on Paul Griffith’s “Intellectual Appetite”
What’s the opposite of a “hot-take”? A “slow-take”? Whatever you call it, we here at Christ & University are all about it, and that is why we are holding a symposium on Paul Griffiths’ 2009 book,...
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The Baptism of Jesus
As the spring semester begins, I’m returning to my weekly practice of reflecting on an illumination from The Saint John’s Bible. I’m particularly excited about this spring because in three weeks Spring...
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Wonder among the Poor: Intellectual Appetite on the Streets
A parking lot in January is not, perhaps, the typical context for examining an academic thesis, but that is where I found myself on the day I finished Paul J. Griffith’s Intellectual Appetite. Huddled...
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Humility in Teaching
What was making Intro to Literature rocky was not my students, it was my own ridiculously lofty dreams for the course. This is a good reminder that humility is an underappreciated virtue in teaching.
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Elisha Anthology
The Saint John’s Bible uses parallel panels in several illuminations to create a visual anthology. One such image is the Elisha Anthology, which depicts five of Elisha’s miracles side-by-side. From...
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Marking Gratitude: Rethinking Plagiarism
When I discuss plagiarism with my students, I’ve learned to expect lots of questions. They are incredibly anxious about identifying the elusive line that separates theft of another’s ideas from proper...
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More on the Dubiousness on Leadership
A few months ago, I wrote a post on the dubiousness of leadership. In it, I talked about the ambiguity of leadership as one of the university’s core values. I suggested that leadership should be...
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Transfiguration
This week the Western church celebrates Transfiguration Sunday and prepares for Lent, which begins on Wednesday. While the Transfiguration looks forward to Easter and even Christ’s second coming, it...
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Gift, Studiousness, and Core Values
There are a number of things I appreciate about Paul Griffiths’ Intellectual Appetite, but chief among them is his treatment of the intellectual and spiritual dispositions that fit the Christian way of...
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Suffering Servant
During this season of Lent, Christians reflect on the role of suffering in God’s redemption. Not only are we saved by Christ’s faithfulness through great suffering, but we are called to share in his...
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