Editing and Eternal Life

Few scenes in the gamut of film history bring together the importance of scholarly editing and our intimations of eternal life as tightly or as movingly as the following scene from Wit, a play by Margaret Edson that was adapted for the small screen by the incomparable Mike Leigh.

Its main character, Vivian Bearing, is a professor of 17th-century British literature, specializing in the holy sonnets of John Donne. At the start of the play, she receives a diagnosis of advanced ovarian cancer and consents to an aggressive course of chemotherapy. The “full dose” of an experimental chemotherapy plays against the “uncompromising” scholarly rigor that Vivian applies to her study and teaching of Donne’s intricate puzzles. Both efforts are justified for making a “significant contribution to knowledge.”

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Remembering My Father

Photos of Ron-4My father died on January 8, from complications of Parkinson’s disease. He was 76. The following eulogy was delivered on January 13, 2014 . . .

It seems fitting to begin simply by acknowledging what we all know: We have lost a remarkable man. Ron was a faithful husband, a dutiful father, a loyal friend, a successful business man, and — who could forget? — an avid lover of college football, ocean fishing, and classic cars. Isn’t it true that those loves provided the context or the platform for nearly all of his relationships? Continue reading “Remembering My Father” →

Calendar of Hymns

DSC_0002  I recently discovered a copy of this wonderful book, A Calendar of Hymns: 52—and One More—Hymns for the American Christian Year, compiled by Frederic Fox and published by Doubleday back in 1961. It included several gems as well as few new hymns that I wasn’t familiar with. The presentation was lovely, with brief introductions on the left and hymns on the right, and seemed well suited for family use. It turned out that there was a copy on Amazon for a few bucks—well worth it!

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Christian Wiman’s Abyss

Perhaps not unlike other readers, I picked up a copy of My Bright Abyss: Mediation of a Modern Believer because of the reputation of its author, Christian Wiman. Since 2003, he has been the editor of Poetry, a prestigious and influential monthly journal published by the Poetry Foundation. While he stepped down from that position in June 2013, he took up joint appointments to Yale Divinity School and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music this fall. So, naturally, I was intrigued when I learned that he had reportedly come to faith during a battle with a rare form of cancer several years ago, at the age of 39. It’s not often that one hears of such conversions among intellectuals or literati, not the least of which a poet, so I was curious.

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In Praise of Robert Alter, part 3

spine compThis post should be entitled “In Praise of Margaret M. Wagner,” since she created the design and typography of Robert Alter’s translations of the Bible for W. W. Norton, beginning with the very first, The Book of Genesis (1996). More than most readers may even be aware, her contribution, evident on every page, mediates Alter’s words, making each translation handsome, accessible, and eminently readable. Indeed, it may be the greatest compliment to the design that most readers see through it and never notice how it functions so clearly and effortlessly.

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Noted: Victor Davis Hanson

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Fields Without Dreams: Defending the Agrarian Ideal is, without question, one of the finest works about the decline of the family farm, specifically the harsh realities of California agriculture during the 1980s (written from the perspective of the late 1990s). The profiles of the last holdout “yeoman” are compelling and full blooded. But what’s even more interesting is how, through the small details and the individual anecdotes, Hanson is able to diagnose the larger trends and social consequences of this decline.

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The Kingdom New Testament

JohnI have read several books by N. T. Wright, and I consider myself an admirer of his work, both popular and academic. So I was naturally excited when I heard that he had compiled his translations from the “New Testament for Everyone Series” (published by Westminster John Knox Press) into a single volume, entitled The Kingdom New Testament. Here’s one volume in the series, for example: Mark for Everyone.

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Index to Wiman’s My Bright Abyss

As I was reading Christian Wiman’s new book My Bright Abyss, I started jotting down the names of poets, theologians, and other writers that he mentioned. My list turned out to be quite extensive—98 names in a 178 page book.

Initially, I suspected that Wiman was drawing heavily, perhaps disproportionately, from contemporary or 20th-century poets. That turned out to be true in some respects, but he also draws from many other eclectic and unexpected sources. One can see from the list a kind of intellectual genealogy for Wiman’s Christian faith.

My stab at a name index can be found here: Wiman index. Feedback and corrections are welcome.

[revised version uploaded October 21, 2013]

In Praise of Robert Alter, Part 2

In November 2009, after reading Alter’s translation of Psalms, I sent the following encouragement to a friend who was wrestling with serious questions of faith and doubt. In it, I quote from a footnote in Alter’s commentary on Psalm 34:

I’ve been thinking a lot about our conversation last Saturday. I just wanted to affirm that the questions you are asking are good ones: candid, defining, essential, humbling.

The struggle to believe, and finding a practice that honors those beliefs, is lifelong, one that is worked out in countless conversations with tradition (“the democracy of the dead,” according to one writer), family, community (which comes and goes), and Scripture.

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