In the woods, is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we return to reason and faith. Ralph Waldo Emerson It is grey November, a Thursday afternoon,…
Tag: students
Life Together
Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father. Colossians 3:17 The sun still hangs over the horizon when I reach the summit of Hochblauen on Sunday afternoon. Our local mountain, Hochblauen is truly a hill with a hotel at the…
An Account of Blessings: 27th Birthday Edition
Taco Salad Surprise Lunch: 1 Rousing renditions of “Happy Birthday”: 5 Birthday Cakes: 3 Icabod Crane Piñata: 1 Times Watching Disney’s 1949 “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (narrated by Bing Crosby!) With Eleventh Graders: 2 Long Walk Through Golden Forest: 1 Notes of love and greeting from friends, family and students: Countless Thanks to all, near…
Gifts, Poems, Accidents
Furthermore, as for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, He has also empowered him to eat from them and to receive his reward and rejoice in his labor; this is the gift of God. For he will not often consider the years of his life, because God keeps him occupied with the gladness of his heart. Ecclesiastes 5:19-20 I’ve never…
Knowledge of Good and Evil
The epilogue of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible hangs in silence in the last minutes of class, images of haunted farms and wrongly-executed non-witches dispersing like smoke into the sunny Friday afternoon. I congratulate my students on finishing the first book of the year, and ask them what they think. The reply is nearly unanimous: We don’t like…
Outward Spirals
It’s never too late to change the pace. Oh, how the days creep up on you, But the goodness is something you don’t have to chase ‘Cause it’s following you. And all you’ll hear is the music. And beauty stands before you. And love comes back around again, It’s a carousel, my friend. Vanessa Carlton,…
God of All Seasons
Do not let kindness and truth leave you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart. Proverbs 3:3 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate…
Of Books and Places
“So, do you like English?” I know that the question, directed at the future eleventh grader beside me, is a long shot. All questions related to school seem distant and unreal in this first week of summer. Like half a dozen others, we’re working at the new middle school in Sitzenkirch, prepping it for painting tomorrow….
Rooted and Grounded in Love
“… And that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:17b-19 Since my own high…
To My Students
Today was our last day of classes at Black Forest Academy. Though finals are still ahead and plenty of events loom in the schedule next week, I thought I’d acknowledge this momentous day by posting the letters I read to my classes today. Thanking God, tonight, for the grace and prayers that have made this…
The Way Home 