We have a tulip in our yard. That’s weird since we’ve never grown tulips in the decade and a half we’ve lived here. We had a week of severe weather (tornadoes to the north of us and monster hail to the south—all we got was the 40 mph winds with much stronger gusts and an …
Last Thursday was one of those high wind, low humidity, fire watch days that are not uncommon in Spring. Unfortunately, a barn in our neighborhood caught on fire, which spread to the adjoining field. It was big enough that the fire departments from the three closest towns were called in, so it was a day …
For the past six months I’ve been working on a commentary (or sorts) on Ephesians. It’s finally complete at just under 40,000 words, and it’s available to anyone who is interested. Send me an email at “lasala [dot] jim [at sign] google [dot] com” and I’ll gladly send you a PDF of my sort-of-commentary. (I …
There has been a slowly dawning awareness for me that the “bleak midwinter,” when “earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone” is fading into light. It was Monday, Jan 29, that this dawning awareness was fully formed in my mind. Coming home from my morning walk around the lake, I realized I had …
November and December are typically early winter in this part of the world, but aside from a few cold days, highs during these two months were in the 50s and 60s, turning these two months into late autumn rather than winter. That changed on Christmas Eve when temperatures dropped into the teens and have not …
We came home after dark last week, but before going into the house, I stepped out of the garage to look at the sky, and to my surprise, delight, and yet, distress, a Starlink satellite train was passing overhead. (The attached picture was not taken by me, btw.) I’ve only seen pictures prior to this, …
Most of my woodland neighbors are quiet folk. Of course the squirrels are excitable. Last week I was out on the patio quietly studying and writing on my computer, when a squirrel started barking and chittering madly at some terrible threat. The squirrel was staring at the north side of the house, just around the …
Last week I wrote about justice in terms of “forming and filling.” God formed creation in a particular manner and filled that creation in a particular manner so that everything worked properly and fit together properly. Injustice occurs when we don’t follow the divine pattern set forth by God. A few days after writing that …
In the previous two essays I have argued that Tolkien’s Middle Earth cosmology is rooted in the western Christian view of creation, and the elvish realms of Rivendell (Elrond’s realm), Lothlórien (Galadriel’s realm) and Mirkwood (Thranduil’s realm) reflect the western tendency toward conquest and coercion, while the realm of Tom Bombadil reflects a very different, …
[Note: I inadvertently posted the second essay in a new series last Monday. This is the first essay that should have been posted. If you’ve not read Tom Bombadil and the Eucharist, and want to continue with this series, you should read it next.] I assume most of my readers are familiar with Tom Bombadil, …
Just Another Jim 