Fostering a new renaissance through creativity, authenticity, spirituality, and art
Polly Castor 
This book is excellent for a thorough look at the life of the Apostle Paul and a detailed examination of his writings. There is a list of his letters chronologically, and outlines of the structure of his major writings. Reading this book was the culmination of a year long study of this man for me, … Read more
We had some fun today checking out kittens in our friend’s barn… They were very happy and gregarious, without a care in the world!
The poem below was written by a blog reader of mine who is a friend from my local clergy association. A spiritual psychotherapist, Fred keeps a poetry blog that I think my readers might enjoy. Check it out! This Much I Know I have been trying God’s patience For over sixty years…. Assuming there is … Read more
School is off to a start, albeit a somewhat rocky one. With so many online classes, and with the power outages due to Hurricane Irene on critical days of the first week (not to mention traveling to Michigan) we were put behind from the offset and are scrambling to catch up. Anyway, that should iron … Read more
My Father-in-law and brother-in-law were and are active Rotarians. James’ dad gave me a poster of their “Four-way Test” that I love, and it has an honored spot up in my office. This is a wonderful test for the things we choose to think, and say and do: Is it Truth? Is it fair to … Read more
For those LEGO enthusiasts out there, I had to share this. We saw it in the Hartford airport: Mark Twain’s house in Lego. Mark Twain won and lost several fortunes in his lifetime; this house was clearly from a winning streak! Imagine building it out of Lego!
More of my family was in one place this weekend than is likely to happen again for some time to come. My sisters (above) were present as well as all six of my dad’s grandchildren. We saw cousins we haven’t seen for years. We all got along well and enjoyed each other’s company very much…
Today we held a lovely memorial service and celebration of my Dad’s life. It was well attended by family, friends and colleagues; it was great to see everyone! This was a respectful, upbeat occasion, honoring the remarkable man my Dad was, in eulogy and photographs, food and music. He led a deeply authentic life, steeped … Read more
It has been twenty-five years since I’ve wandered around my college haunts. It was fun giving my family the tour. Things have changed. You can no longer drive through the arch of my then modern, new high school; it is seedy now and there is a newer one now across town. My “West Engin” building, … Read more
I flew to Michigan today, and enjoyed chatting with my seat partner on our very small, boisterous jet; clearly everyone was in a pre-holiday mood. She was a very nice, young, vegan mom on her way to run in a half marathon in California… Anyway, here is the view looking down…
My daughter was practicing timed gesture drawings so I tried a couple in solidarity with her. You are allowed five minutes for every two items in your still life… here are mine.
Very timely for me, I read today the book of Ecclesiastes from the Message version of the Bible. Below I quote from the translator’s preface to the book and then a bit of the text. Interestingly, “Vanities” was repeatedly translated as “spitting in the wind.” I loved that. “Ecclesiastes is a famous witness to this … Read more
The hurricane gave me an opportunity to paint when I haven’t gotten to do in all too long. This was done by candlelight, without electricity.
I loved this book about a young Canadian woman unexpectedly finding God at Oxford. I could relate to this story as Engineering school at University of Michigan did it for me! It was wonderful to follow her trajectory, so like my own, from unbelieving, to skeptical, to questioning, and eventually to becoming a committed Christian. … Read more
Well, we were out of power four days. The first evening we all played Settler’s of Catan by candlelight and had a nice family time. The second evening I painted by candlelight. By the third evening it wasn’t fun anymore and I negotiated with a friend in order to put our stuff in her freezer … Read more
A month ago I posted on this blog samples of drawings done by previous AP Drawing students. I was dumbfounded at the amazing work they did, and felt like this class would stretch anyone past what they thought they could do. When there is sufficient enrollment in the class, they offer a scholarship competition assignment … Read more
