Packing up has (naturally) been time-consuming and occasionally odious. But for someone like me, who can get lost in the rediscovery of old letters, knick-knacks, book marginalia and such, it's actually been something close to a triumph of efficiency. Not getting all that distracted, after all. The only downside is that I'm not getting the time ( Read more... )

I saw these online today. I think it's a pity that when someone dies, language becomes so inadequate to describing the person lost. I didn't know Fr. Fagin well, only working with him when we swapped classes last spring so that he could teach an undergraduate course on Ignatius of Loyola while I took the Master's class on "Church, Sacraments and ( Read more... )

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The second finale, as it were, of the school year came after the students' various graduation events, when the departmental faculty gathered at The Columns Hotel for a last get-together, the evening that Mari was leaving town. I was running a bit late from a meeting on campus, having a long, cool talk with the Dean, where we had gotten side- ( Read more... )

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I went to the 9pm Mass at Loyola Sunday night, the last one of the school year, which was a Bluegrass Mass. Leaving the house shortly beforehand, I climbed onto my bike to the gorgeous sound of a nighthawk hunting: the quintessential sound of summer to my northern Illinois-raised ears. The Mass was kind of fabulous. I had to wander a bit, as it ( Read more... )

The weekend ended up being less fun and social than I had hoped, with the bulk of my energy going into grading instead, pleased at least to see how much my Catholicism students who had started to take it easy instead seriously rallied and did some very impressive work ( Read more... )

One of the happier things about my psychology, I gather, from talking with other people, is that I don't really have nightmares. I know some people really are plagued by these, which sounds more unpleasant for restful sleep than is having a pea-sized bladder or somesuch ( Read more... )

Some excellent moments throughout the last week or so. While being sort of marooned away from family was not my first preference for the Easter holiday, I had some chances to make up for that. One highlight was having a good talk with my brother Joe at the beginning of April in celebration of his birthday, reminding me again how after my visit to ( Read more... )

One of my less-successful teaching days today. I came into the class session with a set of notes and questions that I thought would make a provocative swing through talking about early 20th century biblical criticism, Ernst Troeltsch, and the issues they raised about the uniqueness of Christianity, the challenge that the reality of the world's ( Read more... )