Tag: loss

Facing Loss with Job and Faust

“Adonai has compassion,” sang the psalmist, “for he understands how we are made, he remembers that we are dust.” Perhaps in our dust of grief, we see clearly for the first time.

The Liberal Arts for Loss and Lament

The main posture of a liberal arts education is slowing down, rest, seeing. But if we just train students to only strive, reach, stretch for something more, then suffering will come as a wasteful, meaningless interruption.

Saving String, Kicking Leaves: Donald Hall’s Elegies

Hall’s elegiac poetry and prose teach grim lessons that are worth heeding, but there is also a sort of unsentimental, necessary hope—a hope for continuity and unexpected rebirth, a hope that keeps open a sense of possibility—that shines obscurely beneath their grief.

When the Witch of November Comes Stealin’

There’s a certain aching joy in the chill of regret.

Two Last Suppers and Ordinary Greatness: A Double Eulogy

What are the compensations on the downhill side of life?

Thoughts on the Return of College Football

Holland, MI. The beginning of the college football season is the closest thing to a state holiday in Michigan. The release of the new auto...