The Barbershop

Home, Revisited

The pandemic has provided an opportunity to recenter our lives around home and family

Mr. Munson’s Mustang: A Fable

"In order to implement vital system updates, you must install the Trans-Mog-Z Facilitator, available at any Big Horizon Automotive Intervention Center. This has been your first notice.”

The Promise and Forgiveness of Hillbilly Elegy

Hillbilly Elegy is indeed political, but in a deeper sense, entangled as it is in the webs of broken promises and repeated forgiveness.

I Hear Kentucky Singing

Whatever our color or life or place of origin, we can all sing of our longing for home, our love of the natural world, our delight in children, and our loss.

A Bigger Pond

We need to reject the myth of Progress that discourages us from ever being settled and content.

The Roots of an American Mover

The sins of the movers may be visited upon their children, but it’s possible for the children to suffer well the consequences of their parents’ and grandparents’ decisions.

Triathlon Training and Place

Training for a triathlon roots you to the environment, economics, and people of a particular place.

Finding Joy in Intentional Community

Intentional community stands as a powerful rebuke to the modern pursuit of the good life: it is not by restlessly seeking to improve our circumstances, but by committing ourselves to a place and people, that joy becomes possible.

Shakespeare and the Pastoral Idyll

Why does Shakespeare offer us love instead of politics? Love is intimate. Love is about attachment. Love is about beauty. Love is local.

Travels with COVID

While there are so-called “flyover” states, there is also a “flyover” state of mind. A road trip can help us leave that behind.