Evangelicalism

The modern evangelical movement arose from the Second American Great Awakening (late eighteenth and early nineteenth century), which was characterized by big emotional camp meetings and revivals. 

Peggy O’Neal (1957-2025)

This what I wrote for my sister’s memorial. Eric read it aloud, as I am still somewhat hard to understand:

Recent Poetry, September 2025

Enlightenment

If we could see things as they be,

God and Satan, beans, that tree,

Are all just me and In my ken.

There is no separateness then.

Hateful actions make no sense,

When no one’s there to take offense.

A Revolutionary Religion

Christianity arose in a period when there were a lot of religions around, and its early liturgies were, of course, influenced by them. But it is harder to understand just how revolutionary Christianity was in that context.

Kathleen Ferrier (1912-1953)

Much has been written about this great English contralto, so it’s probably OK that this appreciative American write something about her, but here, where she is not as well known, more than seventy years after her death.

Richard Long (born 1945)

I came upon his sculptural work almost by chance in the mid-1980s. The weird thing about modern art is that, after it got separated from draftsmanship, it got a lot easier to be a fool for doing it, so being an artist took a lot of bravery. It allowed your idiocy to be seen plain and up front.

Why I Like Ella Fitzgerald

When my partner, Eric, and I first met in the early nineties, a great appreciation for the music of Ella Fitzgerald was one of the things that united us.