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Jul 20, 2023: After not attending a soccer match since April, I will now be attending three in the next week: two FC Dallas League Cup matches, and a Barcelona vs …
Jul 14, 2023: Remarks: Rhetoric Capstone Presentations Juniors at Coram Deo Academy research, write, defend, and present a rather impressive Capstone paper. The remarks below were shared the evening that …
Jul 13, 2023: Here is a fascinating essay about the life, faith, and legacy of Dr. John Goodenough, who (1) has an excellent last name, and (2) made the scientific …
Jul 10, 2023: I have updated my Writing page to include quick links to a number of my recent written works, including a few Letters from the Headmaster that I have …
Jul 9, 2023: A birthday gift from my wife and several good friends. I sold my last guitar towards the end of undergrad, and have been meaning to pick one up for …
Jul 2, 2023: Year 10 of Adventure Trip of the South (ATOTS) in the books! The first big hike from 8500 to 11500 was a beating, but worth it. The Alite chair I …
Jun 7, 2023: Lionel Messi to the MLS is truly stunning.
May 30, 2023: An attempt to harness technology as a tool to accomplish what I find to be most important in life. Blank App for shortcuts and Venite for the daily …
May 30, 2023: The Mediterranean: a rather stunning cradle of civilization.
May 30, 2023: Pentecost and Genesis 11: Nothing they propose to do will now be impossible for them.
May 30, 2023: In the Judaean desert, on an unexpected trip of a lifetime a week before our 15 year anniversary.
May 30, 2023: Church of the Annunciation, Nazareth.
May 8, 2023: Moral idiots and a liberal arts education The paragraph below, from Alan Jacobs, is an important one to comprehend. The rest of his post helps frame some of the wider issues at hand, and …
May 4, 2023: The World, the Flesh, and the Devil. These are the three forces that aim to tear down the creatures of God. And in the Good Shepherd discourse, Jesus …
May 3, 2023: What an exciting turn of events it would be to see Wrexham promoted to League Two and Chelsea relegated to the Championship in the same season. Not …
May 2, 2023: Being part of a Diocesan email listserv and serving as a parish priest both mean that I regularly read announcements of death. This also means that I …
Apr 29, 2023: Letter to Students: On ChatGPT, for now You happen to be a student at a fascinating moment in the history of information and technology. It is not unlike being a student in the years when …
Apr 26, 2023: Soccer is an icon of virtue ethics, and as such it is a form of leisure that points us to what it means to be a moral creature.
Apr 24, 2023: Remarks: An introduction to our Rhetoric Capstone Student Presentations I am encouraged by many things this evening, but I would like to name two of them. First, I am encouraged to know that this is a place where students …
Apr 19, 2023: If It Be Your Will by Leonard Cohen is sung from the perspective of Jesus from his arrest and trial through the harrowing of hell, right?
Apr 3, 2023: Because of our sophisticated watches and our ability to schedule our days down to the minute with the push of a button, it is easy for us to …
Mar 29, 2023: To all those who love soccer, and to those who don’t but love someone who does. The dedication page of Laurent Dubois’ The Language of the Game
Mar 21, 2023: On Leisure and Work (Josef Pieper) One of Josef Pieper’s central claims in his 1948 Leisure: The Basis of Culture is this: we place too much value on hard work, and as a result our …
Mar 14, 2023: What was before him appeared no longer a creature of corrupted will. It was corruption itself, to which will was only attached as an instrument. Ages …
Mar 14, 2023: GPT-4 scores well on a variety of common academic benchmarks, but I am most intrigued—though not surprised—by where it falls comparatively short: AP …
Mar 6, 2023: A view from the Supporters Section after a late first-half equalizer this weekend. An early birthday + father’s day gift of FC Dallas season tickets …
Mar 6, 2023: Lessons from Nicodemus this Lent: The problem with humanity is not a lack of information. You and I are not one New York Times opinion piece away from …
Feb 21, 2023: The eve of Ash Wednesday 2023 is a good time to remember that fasting is an exercise that leads to strength, not weakness.
Feb 17, 2023: The final chapters of Esther provide us with a reminder of why we have a liturgical calendar in the first place, and a framework for approaching these …
Feb 13, 2023: A rediscovery of Moral Beauty? Paul Vitz once said that in our age we will recover—or rather rediscover—many traditional beliefs and practices, and that we will do so primarily …
Feb 7, 2023: But the Turing test cuts both ways. You can’t tell if a machine has gotten smarter or if you’ve just lowered your own standards of intelligence to …
Feb 6, 2023: English soccer is worth watching in its own right, but it does not hurt that its commentators have quite the way with words. Case in point: Peter …
Jan 29, 2023: This must be the New Math everyone is talking about?
Jan 27, 2023: ChatGPT and tools like it are not the end of the world, but they do highlight a worrying trend: we have an increased appetite for seeking information …
Dec 31, 2022: Rest in Peace, Benedict XVI Quite soon, I shall find myself before the final judge of my life. Even though, as I look back on my long life, I can have great reason for fear and …
Dec 30, 2022: Merry Christmas from the Jordan family. (Shown here in both our forced and natural poses. I will let you determine which is which for each of …
Dec 18, 2022: The final week of Advent means it is time for the seven O Antiphons. I find these to be helpful antidotes to the business of the final week before …
Dec 16, 2022: A lesson in governance as I navigate changing traffic signal timing for a light near our school: The people I interact with in the city office are …
Dec 4, 2022: A full few days of putting up lights, a family hike, USA soccer, basketball, Bob Goff, and work on the playhouse.
Nov 29, 2022: I named our sunroom lights by their cardinal directions, not expecting political commentary gems like this one when routines don’t work as expected.
Nov 28, 2022: Are you in organizational leadership in any capacity? I’d love some advice. What helps you: Make sure you personally spend your best time and …
Nov 27, 2022: Advent is about preparation for judgement, and that is actually a good thing. Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put …
Nov 26, 2022: An under-appreciated mark of a truly great sports commentator: knowing when to say nothing. Messi scored, and there was a 45 second period of …
Nov 26, 2022: Advent is coming. Time to set some intentions for this Holy New Year.
Nov 21, 2022: Oh no. It has happened. I tried to prevent it by asking reason to temper my expectations. But mere hours before kickoff … I BELIEVE THAT WE WILL WIN. …
Nov 20, 2022: I just finished reading Pillars of the Earth. It was published when I was four years old, but seems to have been written for me to read at this exact …
Nov 20, 2022: An unusally free Saturday means that I had a chance to make some good progress on the playhouse.
Nov 16, 2022: I am pretty sure the title “Queen of Christmas” is already taken.
Nov 4, 2022: Leaving Twitter is a small but important first step towards a healthier relationship with technology, your neighbor, and your self. Not because of …
Nov 2, 2022: The final first-person verb of the Nicene Creed helps us remember that the Christian faith is more than mental affirmation of truth. It involves a …
Nov 2, 2022: All Souls Day is a helpful antidote to our death-anemic culture that oscillates between ignoring and overly-fearing this experience shared by all …
Oct 31, 2022: The farmer and the pig.
Oct 30, 2022: Settled on a good use of a corner of our new backyard: building a playhouse for the kids. (Current ages 9, 7, and 2.)
Oct 26, 2022: I paused the Tottenham match I was watching in the 95th minute to wake up my daughter so she could rewatch Kane’s goal with me. And then we discovered …
Oct 26, 2022: Many have fallen by the edge of the sword, but not as many as have fallen because of the tongue. … As you fence in your property with thorns, …
Oct 20, 2022: My wife returned this weekend from a two week pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago. My latest piece at Covenant is about my experience trying to walk …
Oct 18, 2022: I do not love it when a match is decided by PKs—they are a terrible way to lose—but it was quite the experience being in the stands last night when FC …
Oct 4, 2022: The two teams I support most have coaches who insists on their “System” even when the results are not (yet/always?) positive. I trust …
Oct 4, 2022: The seven day week as a microcosm of the Church Calendar. Read more here.
Oct 2, 2022: Slowly but surely, my Run Thy Neighborhood project continues. Today’s run completed the outer frame of a neighborhood and a half, and a few missing …
Sep 28, 2022: Three years ago today I was ordained a Priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas.
Sep 24, 2022: The USAMNT proceeded to cough the ball up 54 times inside their own half in the first half alone. Think about that for a minute and it becomes almost …
Sep 21, 2022: My Run Thy Neighborhood goal hit a first milestone today: Heights Park (my actual neighborhood) is complete. On to Arapaho Heights next!
Sep 14, 2022: A change I made to my work email last week has proven quite fruitful: Emails that I am copied on now skip the inbox and go directly to a CC folder. I …
Sep 13, 2022: Tottenham’s “win or tie even when it’s ugly” approach has finally caught up to them. I would not want to be sitting near …
Sep 13, 2022: One of the benefits of following the Church calendar is the nearly constant reminders that it brings. Holy Cross Day (September 14) is a great example …
Sep 12, 2022: O earth, how like to heav’n, if not preferred The opening line of Satan’s soliloquy in Book IX of Paradise Lost.
Sep 12, 2022: Grass: the great American contribution to world soccer this fall. The seed, developed by a Georgia-based company, has been selected by FIFA, which …
Sep 10, 2022: Introducing Rhythms of Habit - a newsletter about approaching the church calendar as an apprenticeship in holiness I am thrilled to introduce Rhythms of Habit, a newsletter about approaching the Church Calendar as an apprenticeship in Holiness. In addition to …
Sep 8, 2022: Rest in peace, and rise in glory, Elizabeth II. The late Queen Elizabeth II played the hand she was dealt about as well as it could possibly have been played, and this required her to exercise …
Aug 27, 2022: This is the moment George W. Bush heard that a second plane had crashed into the WTC.
Aug 27, 2022: FWIW: amateur comes from the Latin (via French) amatorem: lover. An amateur does a thing primarily for the love of that thing.
Aug 26, 2022: More than a few friends have slowly become fans of The Beautiful Game by way of two things: (1) My own peer pressure / love for the game (2) My …
Aug 26, 2022: Or put another way: what we need most in moments of conflict are the humanities, and what we are offered instead is a dangerous parody. My latest …
Aug 26, 2022: Two Football Notes With more Americans playing in top flight European leagues than ever, and performing especially well in the Premier League, it is hard to not let …
Jul 23, 2022: Rich Mullins was the greatest of the 90s era evangelical musicians. (If you know the era, you know the era…) I often find myself thinking …
Jul 14, 2022: After the year-long run streak finished in March, I fell off the bandwagon for a couple of months. Picking it back up by trying to run every street in …
Jul 8, 2022: There are 82 years between these two: my daughter (2) and my grandmother (89), both hiking Red Rocks on our annual two week vacation.
Jun 2, 2022: My article on social media and virtue that recommends M.b as a viable alternative to Big Social was published today by The Living Church. Social Media …
May 26, 2022: Our ancestors sharing what they saw when they checked in on our “progress”: They have dwellings, but they often pay people to destroy …
May 21, 2022: There are a few pivotal moments recorded in the Gospels that give us a glimpse into Jesus’ life after the resurrection. But this Sunday’s Gospel …
May 13, 2022: Began reading these two books today; one for professional and the other for personal reasons. I suspect both will have an impact in both realms.
May 13, 2022: Glory, glory, Tottenham Hotspur!
May 11, 2022: On End of Year Academic Awards Ceremonies An excerpt from my opening remarks at our Rhetoric School Awards Ceremony. The most important things in life cannot be captured on a certificate. When …
May 10, 2022: I am not sure we are going to “Redefine” education with QR codes…
May 4, 2022: Wendell Berry’s poem Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front is all the more impressive/beautiful/haunting for having been first published in …
May 3, 2022: Wrapping up a draft for my next Covenant piece that tries to answer the question Is there an alternative to Big Social that doesn’t shrink our …
Apr 28, 2022: Scrapped idea for another day A scrapped idea for this year’s Easter Vigil sermon that I think would be interesting to pursue eventually: I think you can find many, if not …
Mar 14, 2022: A One Year Run Streak Today I completed a 365 day run streak. I have run at least one mile per day for the past year. To mark the occasion, below are some initial …
Jan 18, 2022: On the Lower Slopes of Worship We are all beginners in the liturgy, really. All of us—from the first-time visitor who finds himself pain helplessly through the Prayer Book wondering …
Jan 15, 2022: 'Man is what he eats.’ With this statement the German materialist philosopher Feuerbach thought he had put an end to all ‘idealistic’ speculations …
Jan 6, 2022: But a new major era seems to be just beginning in the shadow of the old and dying modernism. I have a name for it, for what it’s worth. I call it …
Jan 6, 2022: Since the beginning of recorded history, empires and civilizations have risen and fallen; sometimes they would seem to have completely disappeared. It …
Jan 5, 2022: An observation after having run every day for 297 days in a row: The first mile is almost always the worst/hardest mile of any run.
Jan 3, 2022: That’s why he and two co-authors—Dweck and Greg Walton of Stanford—recently performed a study that suggests it might be time to change the way we …
Jan 3, 2022: Change your name, and fool the angel of death. Read more from my recent article for the Feast of the Holy Name here.
Dec 16, 2021: Spent some time reflecting on Psalm 91, vocation, the Daily Office, work and life balance, and more on a good friend’s podcast this week. Give it a …
Dec 16, 2021: Working title for a writing project I am chipping away at these days: Presence in a Virtual Age: a sacramental theology you didn’t know you needed
Nov 30, 2021: I have to imagine that those who work towards developing or are in any way excited about the Metaverse have only ever watched the first five minutes …
Jul 16, 2021: I'm not so sure that the problem with Twitter is that people are feeling the need to hold back from posting on Twitter... Also, there is a name for …
May 20, 2021: The Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) is essential background reading for the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-13). The parallels and inversions between the …
Feb 20, 2021: From mocking him, to being intrigued as I learned more about his personal life (including his visit to the Monastery of Christ in the Desert, where I …
Feb 20, 2021: Three quick thoughts as I approach two months without a smart phone. I don't need a smartphone.Very few day-to-day companies on the planet believe #1 …
Feb 19, 2021: The basic temptation in the Garden of Eden boils down to this: Take, eat. This food is your path towards independence from your Creator. Towards …
Feb 9, 2021: Whereas refusing to read these authors and learn about their worlds — or to do so merely in order to melt them down in the moral acids of our own …
Feb 8, 2021: Catholicism is a very tangible business—it's about seeing and hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling as much as it's about texts and arguments and …
Nov 28, 2020: Christians have apparently been praying for AD 2020 for quite some time… From The Great Litany, which will open our Advent services tomorrow.
Nov 6, 2020: introducing istherepublicstillintact.com (This was an oddly theraputic way to spend thirty minutes.)
Nov 4, 2020: Someone needs to purchase istherepublicstillintact.com and update with a simple “Yes" or “No" so that we can all get on with our lives this …
Oct 16, 2020: Is there an indiweb/open alternative to Strava, etc.? I also use Smashrun, but would love a site that visualizes all of my data, not just runs.
Jul 11, 2020: Spent most of the past month working through potential return-to-school guidelines. This just about sums up the experience thus far. From …
Jun 28, 2020: From a sermon preached in 2007 by Archbishop Rowan Williams.
Jun 28, 2020: Re-reading Watership Down with a group if incoming high school freshmen this summer has been a real treat. Never thought I would say that about a book …
Jun 28, 2020: Today’s (road trip + birthday) breakfast. Austin has its fair share of great brisket, and Valentina’s is up there.
Jun 26, 2020: All work email is officially blocked on all devices for the next eight days. One of the few true breaks from work in the year. Looking forward to it …
Jun 24, 2020: Ready for another season of (mostly) news-free online life. Freedom is now setup to perpetually block all news sites other than one local site and the …
Jun 24, 2020: It is called saving, and, when possible, it is among the most tangible ways you can set yourself up to love your neighbor in times of crisis.
Jun 24, 2020: top education officials detail plans to open public schools for in-person classes this fall. By “detail plans” they actually mean “force individual …
Jun 20, 2020: But a deeper question lurks beneath this debate: are these services making you a better or worse version of yourself? On social media and character, …
Jun 18, 2020: A freeing principle to adopt in the social media world: Having a reason to maintain presence on a particular social media platform does not mean that …
Jun 17, 2020: The City of Dallas reacting to the fact that the entire city has been doing some spring cleaning during Quarintine 2020.
Jun 17, 2020: Taken as a whole, the (Book of Common Prayer) is the ritual celebration of the seasons of our lives from birth to death in the light of the gospel. …
Jun 16, 2020: If we're the time's lords If we’re the time’s lords, we don’t determine when to celebrate feasts by looking at the phases of the moon. Paul goes apoplectic when Christians …
Jun 16, 2020: The Pagans said 'Look' They said ‘Vide, look! How the love one another.’ They did not say, ‘Aude, listen to the Christians’ message’; they did not say ‘Lege, read what they …
Jun 15, 2020: Leadership is often a matter of failing people’s expectations at a rate they can stand. Ronald Heifetz As a priest and school administrator in the …
Jun 15, 2020: On using email as email At my best, I try to use email as its namesake suggests it should be used: as an electronic mailbox. As technology advanced in the 20th and 21st …
Jun 15, 2020: Very interested to read how folks have approached migrating personal sites/blogs from WP to MB, specifically in setting up different streams on MB for …
Jun 15, 2020: How to Stop Loving Your Phone Becoming detached from my phone and off-hours email access started well over two years ago. The list below represents the gradual progression to where …