Watching and keeping awake requires us to live in the present. But we don’t often live in the present.Read more…
Prepare: Second Week of Advent (Scholar’s Compass)
We tend to think that we orchestrate the opportunities of our lives, but in contrast the Biblical emphasis is on preparing to receive from God and from the good graces of other people.Read more…
Hope: First Week of Advent (Scholar’s Compass)
As the church year commences and the Advent season begins again, we are called to hope, prepare, watch, and rejoice. These shorter, gray sky days often point to the reality that our whole being is aching for something more, something deeper. Read more…
Thanksgiving for Domestic Hospitality (Scholar’s Compass)
During my own graduate days, there is no kindness for which I am more thankful than that of being welcomed into the homes of my peers and instructors.Read more…
Scheduling for our Souls (Scholar’s Compass)
I’m not sure where you are on your academic path, but as a freshly graduated Ph.D., I am excited as I start a job as an Assistant Professor this year. It means I get to learn how to create my life schedule amongst a bunch of newness: new city, new home, new church, new university, new community (including new coffee shops!), new university, new colleagues, new students, and honestly, a new me.Read more…
If I Had to Do It Again: the Graduate School and Early Professor Years Edition (Scholar’s Compass)
What if I had it to do again? Would I change anything or not?
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Unroll the Scroll (Scholar’s Compass)
No, the king is not responding to another rejected journal article submission or to a reminder about his impending student loan payment. He is not unfurling the scroll version of the Chronicle of Higher Education decrying the lack of jobs for PhDs in the Humanities in the 8th century B.C.E.Read more…
Scholar’s Compass: Stories for Life
Earlier today, I wrote a letter to my major professor from my Ph.D. program thanking him for all the time and work he put into training me. I told him that any accomplishment that I or my students might achieve could be accredited to him because of his dedication to excellence. Knowing him, this statement might mean as much to him as his winning of the Nobel Peace prize in 2007.Read more…
Loving Your Spouse, Kids (And Anyone, Really) While You’re Still In School—Part 4
Last week, I offered the first part of a list of hands on ways to love your family and friends in grad school. Here’s the rest of the list.Read more…
Loving Your Spouse, Kids (And Anyone, Really) While You’re Still In School—Part 3
So let’s take a step back and see where we are on the map. We’ve spent a lot of time on acknowledging our tendency to idolize grad school, and, why we do that. What are some practical ways to focus on God and care for others? Read more…
Loving Your Spouse, Kids (And Anyone, Really) While You’re Still In School—Part 2
But all this begs the question: why would we put our thesis or research in God’s place anyway? Read more…
Loving Your Spouse, Kids (And Anyone, Really) While You’re Still In School—Part 1
Shoot. As I heard the front door open from my basement study, I grew frustrated. I’ve been reading and studying all day and there’s still SO much more to do.Read more…
Aesthetic Experience and the Existence of God (Scholar’s Compass)
Does aesthetic experience point us to God? Read more…
Not What I’d Planned (Scholar’s Compass)
Chronic illness is not what I’d planned. Chronic illness is not the path I would’ve chosen. Read more…
Flaky Mind, Undivided Heart (Scholar’s Compass)
Many of us academics invest an inordinate amount of time organizing and goal-setting in order to achieve certain objectives and earn favorable evaluations from students and supervisors. We want to earn positive labels and avoid negative descriptions like “flaky.”Read more…
Stone Soup, Scarcity, and the Kingdom of God (Scholar’s Compass)
Stone soup has been on my mind this January. I remember as a child reading a book where a few weary soldiers heading home from a war stop in a village. I guess they were short on money in the story, because they ask the people in the village to give them some food.Read more…
What Are You Waiting For? (Scholar’s Compass)
In graduate school, we wait in hallways to learn if we passed our defenses. On the job market, we wait to hear from departments that, like our high school crushes, all too often do not call. As junior faculty members, we wait to learn if we will be promoted to tenure.Read more…
Seeing Anew This Year
As we ring in the New Year, much ink will be spilled, again, on New Year’s resolutions and promises. Frankly, I gave up on New Year’s resolutions long ago, as I realized that they didn’t make much difference in my life anyway.Read more…
Listen: Suffering, Part 5
Practice the 55-5 rule. Francis Schaeffer, famed 20th century apologist-theologian, used to say that if you spend one hour in conversation, 55 minutes should be listening and asking questions. We should only hear ourselves talking for 5 minutes.Read more…
Chaos: Suffering, Part 4 (Scholar’s Compass)
Which way will you run?Read more…
Displaced: Suffering, Part 3 (Scholar’s Compass)
I felt the pain of the ordinary barn swallow. A nest had been formed in a humanly difficult spot: a corner ledge just above the main entry into the kitchen off the back porch of the house.Read more…
The Fruit of the Spirit in Academia, Part 3 (Scholar’s Compass)
All nine virtues Paul lists make up this one fruit of the Spirit (karpos, singular in the Greek). When we are filled with the Spirit we manifest God’s true character, his love, power, and patience. Read more…
Hands: Suffering, Part 2 (Scholar’s Compass)
When it happened, some turned away, others vomited, more cried, a few collapsed. But one, Luke Hancock, ran to hold his friend’s hand, praying for him.Read more…
Finding Christ When You’re Busy, Part 4 (Scholar’s Compass)
The people who prayed me through graduate school included homemakers, staff members of a local food pantry, artists, lawyers, part time church secretaries, state tax employees, retail workers, and so many others.Read more…