Fixing a Hole...

Help me fund a wheelchair

2011-12-15T20:27:00.000-08:00

Brad Blauser, 2010 CNN Hero of the Year Finalist, Texas A&M University graduate and all-around good guy is back home in Texas this Christmas after spending seven years distributing care packages and study Bibles to soldiers and wheelchairs to disabled children in Iraq. If you have the ability, please consider supporting Brad's missions. He will be headed back to Iraq in January to continue his

Second Guest Post Up at St. Lydia's Book Club

2011-12-07T20:02:00.000-08:00

My second invited post at St. Lydia's Book Club is up. When Melinda first asked for a guest post, I wasn't certain if she wanted to hear about my creative process since that seemed to be the theme of her previous guest post, or if I was free to consider a more esoteric subject. So, I wrote both and Melinda liked both. The first, One Thing is Needful, was published first and I was gratified by

Fightin' Texas Aggie Bonfire

2011-11-17T16:46:00.001-08:00

Overnight here in Aggieland, we will commemorate the loss of 12 young men and women whose untimely deaths are forever etched in the collective memory of Aggie faithful. Pulling material from the old Tomes site again, here is a letter I wrote the day after Bonfire fell in 1999 and a reflection I wrote when I put this on my site a couple of years later. It has now been 12 years since Bonfire

Orthodox Doughnuts

2011-11-05T20:16:00.000-07:00

I don't often just take things whole-cloth, but I stumbled upon this story (again) today and was reminded of the simple and overwhelming love that radiates from our great pastors. Taken from here. Wherever bishops travel, churches plan lavish banquets and other solemn tributes to honor their hierarchs. Visitations by Archbishop Dmitri Royster of the Orthodox Church in America were different

River Restoration: What's in a Name?

2011-10-25T22:48:00.000-07:00

I spent the better part of the past week in Phoenix, AZ with colleagues from around the country at the 46th Annual Conference of the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC). Since serendipitously falling into the field over 8 years ago, I have had the privilege of taking part in what I believe to be one of the last bastions of classical liberal education in the modern university. My

ДобрО пожАловать!

2011-10-15T22:10:00.000-07:00

While only about 15% of my historical traffic is from Russia, I've noticed this last week that hits from Russia have topped any other location. So, I thought I'd take a moment and say, ЗдрАвствуйте! I don't speak or read Russian myself so please forgive any mistake in rendering this welcome. I hope someday to learn...or at least learn Church Slavonic. God Bless!

Bread for the Soul

2011-10-06T23:31:00.000-07:00

I was excited to learn this past week that I had won a drawing to receive two books from Anna Larsen Books. The drawing was coordinated through Jane Meyer's blog, The Woman and the Wheat, which is quickly becoming a favorite read for me. Jane combines down-to-earth wisdom with a searching soul and a writer's knack for serving up the concoction in the most palatable presentation possible. And

Help Reaching Up

2011-10-06T23:09:00.000-07:00

Most evenings my involvement with our boys' bedtime routine ends after we end our evening prayers. They want Mommy to read them stories and get them to sleep; I head off, usually, to take care of cleaning, feeding pets, or to catch up on work. About once a month (usually when my wife has a CE meeting), I get to do the whole bedtime routine myself. This past Tuesday was one such red-letter day.

Reflecting the Spotlight

2011-09-24T20:47:00.000-07:00

The recent warm reception of my guest post, "One thing is needful" at St. Lydia's Book Club has helped me appreciate how much grassroots effort plays a role in introducing new writers to a wider audience in the digital age. Say what you might about mutual appreciation societies, but it is useful in any field to expose your work to the criticism of your peers and receive encouragement from

Orthodox Writers and Readers

2011-09-22T21:09:00.000-07:00

My guest blog post is now up at St. Lydia's Book Club. Melinda Johnson, who authors the blog, invited my guest appearance after an exchange initiated by my comment on her post "Poets and Artists..." In my post I consider how art can be a vector for grace and how I regularly fail to appreciate the rich blessings I have. Here is an excerpt: Christ told Martha, “One thing is needful.” If I took

Exile

2011-09-01T19:54:00.000-07:00

Buttery welcome spills out to sit with me in the grass My back digging into the ridges of bark, holding up this oak as the light holds up each blade stark and shocked in the temporary respite of a Texas summer night. My sobs punctuated by my rough backrest Energy dissipates in the air like the heat radiating out of the dirt beneath me. Just moments before possessed and displaced so that I

Foy Davis

2011-08-16T09:08:00.000-07:00

I have recently read all of Gordon Atkinson's Foy Davis stories and wanted to share them. I first heard about the (now former) Rev. Atkinson when his blog post about a visit to St. Anthony the Great in San Antonio started burning up the Eastern Orthodox Christian blogosphere (large demographic that this is) including my own post. These stories are less cultured than Atkinson's writing at Real

Texas A&M to the SEC

2011-08-14T12:35:00.000-07:00

If you've not been keeping up with the conference realignment chatter, all signs are pointing toward Texas A&M going to the SEC starting in 2012. I've been keeping up with the buzz at TexAgs.com; TexAgs' Billy Luicci has had the only solid information in all of the speculation, so if you're the type that needs to know, check out his premium subscription service [/end commercial] Last year when

Creativity as a Transcendent Act

2011-08-10T14:17:00.000-07:00

Over the last year I had the opportunity to "teach" two groups of University Scholars in a Faculty Mentor Group for the first time along with my good friend J. Vincent Scarpace. This seminar program is not new, it has been a cornerstone of the Texas A&M University Honors Program developmental scholarship program for some time, and is often cited by students as one of the most rewarding

More on The Response

2011-08-08T12:42:00.000-07:00

To temper my earlier criticism of The Response, I thought I'd share some observations having participated vicariously. At the urging of my friend Sue, I watched the live webstream from The Response from about 10:30 AM - 4:30 PM (actively listening/watching for the first two hours or so of that). The first thing I would say is that Perry played little part in the actual event, though his piece (

Household Austerity Plan

2011-08-06T19:46:00.000-07:00

In C.S. Lewis' Voyage of the Dawn Treader, there is a vignette that, I think, is an entirely appropriate metaphor for the dire economic situation the U.S. finds ourselves in now. Those who know the story will remember that Edmund and Lucy have entered Narnia with their altogether horrid cousin Eustace and met up with King Caspian X and the crew of the Dawn Treader whilst the ship was on a voyage

The Emperor's New Face

2011-08-03T21:35:00.000-07:00

Yet more poetry migration. Later stuff. This collection shows maturation (!) in the course of itself. My favorites start around the middle of this collection; they are marked by a freer verse and more use of figurative imagery. These poems date from Fall 1995 - Spring 1997 _________________________________ The Emperor’s New Face The Happiest Sadist   And what of this man   who by

Thoughts and Remembrances

2011-08-03T21:02:00.000-07:00

More poetry migration from the old website. I thought I'd spare us all the pain of seeing each of this posted separately. This is the earliest poetry I have. Much of it is childish (though I'm impressed some of these insights). Did I say sophomoric? I was being kind... These poems date from Spring 1994-Spring 1995 ___________________________________ Thoughts and RemembrancesDead Man’s FloatA

Month of Sundays

2011-08-03T20:41:00.000-07:00

Month of Sundays A Collection of Short PoetryByJonathan KotinekAn Introduction to the Title and Text Sunday, in our culture, is a day of rest. It is the Protestant appropriation of the Sabbath, and as such has often come into conflict with the ever-growing Humanism that is the natural child of Protestantism. The Sabbath was instituted by God to inform Man of his need for physical rest

Cort: Dark Tower Fan-fic

2011-08-03T20:21:00.000-07:00

Still trying to rehabilitate some content from my old website. The following is a story from an online RPG that originally lived at OneList.com. It was written in collaboration with Dennis, Jill, Juli, Karen and Tracy in a writer's roulette fashion. The story is based on Stephen King's Dark Tower series and was written sometime in 1998-1999 (not long after the publication of Wizard and Glass)

Hospitality and The Response

2011-07-23T23:39:00.000-07:00

I read Judges chapters 19 and 20 tonight as a follow-up to a conversation with a friend and colleague about the conventions of hospitality in the middle east. Reflecting on the passage, I’m struck first by the emphasis at the start of chapter 19 and again at the end of chapter 20 about the lack of a king. Recalling what I can about the way Saul, the first king of Israel came to that position, I

The Idea of Ancestry II

2011-05-31T13:42:00.000-07:00

Institutionalization can be debilitating.I have friends who can’t leave becausethey have grown so accustomed to the system.Some, like Frank, I can still visitbecause he remembers me inside.My children call him unclebecause the myth of brotherhoodis hard to let die when it is the only thing.Just six months out of the homeand in jail, Frank laughs and reminds methat it is the other way around.

Storm Horses

2011-05-31T13:36:00.000-07:00

Ocean-echoA million drops of spray on the metal of my roofProlong this underwater feeling of slow motion.If wishes were horses I’d have ridden to youAt the first clap of thunder,Eager to be rocked to sleep in your armsWith the lullaby of each dropTime and spaceWindAnd waves of fearHave taken their tollDemand it from the red reflections of brake lightsThat spill out in puddles in front of meA

Remembered

2011-05-31T13:33:00.000-07:00

An anonymous woman sips water on the top row of bleachers In a patch of sunlight that seems to burn through her She is here to remember a husband/brother/father Taken in the line of duty, protecting Texas highways The rest of us stand under the leafy coolness of oak trees Still silent of birds whose retreat was somehow more disturbing than the Armed salute that startled them They have not yet

Movement Skinward

2011-05-31T13:32:00.001-07:00

My skin does not walk under starlightIt runs and writhes and floats and fliesMagic and inkI wonder if they’ve ever been separateWhy else do you need inkIf not to sign the universeIn a spot where you can access it anytimeLook at the wall and rememberThat brief flash of understandingThat moment when it all came togetherPeople inked beasts on cave walls in FranceIn some when we can only conjureI’ve

I know

2011-05-31T13:31:00.001-07:00

I will have to work twice as hard to get half as far.I will have to do twice as good to get half the recognition.I will have to have a perfect understanding of roots I’ve never knownMy skin does not do justiceI shed its pale, mottled trapBecause it contradicts my heartWhen I look across the roomAt the only (other) black man and recognizeThe humor and smallness and largeness and disconnected“I

Baby Photos

2011-05-31T13:29:00.001-07:00

Eyes pin-pricked to keep light from entering and tears from escaping; worried shut, in glances, trying not to confirm Paul Simon’s Myth of Fingerprints. I, alone, invested with thoughts and traces of lineage thought and traced my unknown mother here: stale bed guarded by ghosts in stiff white uniforms. Stale sticky linens grasp at her feet and thighs—not even the comfort of crisp cool white

Discarded Script

2011-05-31T13:22:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I miss itthe calm assurance of nothingthe freedom of being whomeverof reading the lines for the character I'd scriptedthe beauty of acting and the innocenthope that the fairy tale would come trueand that there could be proven someveracity to the adage that opposites attractfrom moonlit backyard fast-food picnicswith one heart in earnestthe other in playful mockery of itWell intentioned

The Color Red

2011-05-31T13:21:00.000-07:00

I am the stranger in the darkthe whistling of the wind outsideyour window on a frozen nightI am the face that you looked atand wished you hadn't becauseit was the beginning of the end.There is a conditioned response to the color red.You can't help the warning lights and buzzersbecause you couldn't stop staringand went insanebecause you turned away quickly, sobbingbecause you know in the end I'll

All In

2011-05-31T13:20:00.000-07:00

Am I wrong to cry your forgiveness?For so long I championed your hearteven later when I secretly held you responsibleCan I be held accountable for a promisethat you wouldn't let me keep.It haunts me like treasured memoriesmapping pirate hoardA game.or enigma wrapped in a riddlewith a gamble at a higher stakeI folded while I was aheadand left the table to make my tallyI thought I could walk

Tarnished Image

2011-05-31T13:14:00.000-07:00

Chapel of nightwith incense of pineI remember being here beforeon my knees with a broken heartand it felt better than I do nowAs the darkness fadesso does the weight on my heartThe light is too harshand doesn't reflect thisemptiness that stars canWho is this void andwhat can ever fill him again?His head bowed in wonder and admirationWhile his mouth mocks his makerand calls death upon himselfHe

Desert Song

2011-05-31T12:56:00.000-07:00

Dry and dusty I am blownAll these miles gone from homeLet the thought of you cover me warm.I seek my shelter from this storm.That's my life, how I want to live.One of these days it'll be all I've left to giveLiving on a love I had never hoped to findGirl I'm living a dream because I know that you are mine.Waking because you are morningand this day will bring me a little bit closer homeno matter

Questions for my children

2011-05-31T12:55:00.001-07:00

SomedayA small voice will respond to thisTired gruff oneAs Daddy.SomedayA small hand will graspA finger of this calloused handAnd feel safe.Someday my hands will caressA life I will have been entrusted with.How do I look into her eyesKnowing I've hurt others?How do I correct his waysWhen I know my own?What do I tell themWhen they askHow do I tell themThere are times to rush at the goalAnd times

White Hands

2011-05-31T12:53:00.000-07:00

Red hands bloodied by four hundred yearsAnd not at least one drop has permeated this skin.Black hands, blackened only by the ink in which I immerse them.I need more to continue thisI need experience I can call my ownI hold up white hands to helpAnd know that I am still not ready becauseI think of them this way.When my hands are ready that is all they will be.Ready handsSpring 2000

Do this in remembrance

2011-05-31T12:36:00.000-07:00

I believe in truthI believe in simplicityI believe in absolutesI believe that purity is a gift,not an accomplishmentI believe in Godand his counterpartI believe that music has powerto create and destroyI believe that fiction is sometimesmore real than lifeI believe in loveI believe in lightI believe in blacknessI believe in denialI believe that all great menare humbleI believe that size

And counting

2011-05-31T12:35:00.001-07:00