Overnight at USS Yorktown with Ben Ben and I are just getting back from his Scouts trip and overnight at the USS Yorktown in Charleston. I've been to the Yorktown several times over the years and have done overnight stays on the ship with middle school groups I've taught, but getting to spend the…

The Great Work Ahead of Us Worth the time to read and process… The Great Work (to invoke Thomas Berry here) ahead of us is daunting. Still, we have the opportunity to create something where human and the more-than-human are encouraged not only to survive but to thrive (together), ultimately, if we…

An Ecology of the Cross Audio Reflection Here's my audio reflection on Marder's thought technology of "The Ecology of Thought"... it's a really powerful notion. This is from my regular tracking and tree-sit journal with a black walnut that I've grown to love and learn from daily.

The Ecology of Thought Beautiful and profound thought here from Michael Marder and Patricia Vieira’s Writing Phytophilia (link to the essay’s PDF). Marder has quickly become one of my favorite thinkers lately and I think we have so much to learn here… 

I really wish corporations would stop using this line about "seeing what we do next" with their services. It was cute when Apple did it the first time a decade ago... but ugh.

Mullins Church Celebrates 250th Anniversary I grew up in Mullins and attended Little Bethel Baptist down the street from Gapway Baptist, but have been to Gapway many times over the years (and my best friend Eric lived beside the church growing up, so we used the grounds as our staging area for…

Boomer Ellipsis… As a PhD student… I do a lot of writing. I love ellipses, especially in Canvas discussions with Professors and classmates as I near the finish line of my coursework.  I’m also a younger Gen X’er / Early Millennial (born in ’78 but was heavily into tech and gaming from the mid-80’s…

On Whale Poop I learned something new today... Impact of baleen whales on ocean primary production across space and time | PNAS: Whales have long been suggested to enhance ocean productivity by recycling essential nutrients, yet their quantitative impact on primary production has remained…

Magnolias Over Ballrooms I’d rather have a magnolia or most any vegetal kin over a ballroom to honor my memory, but that’s just me... Trump Rips Out Presidents’ Historic Trees for New Ballroom: Satellite imagery shows that six trees, including southern magnolias commemorating presidents Warren G.…

OpenAI’s Sky for Mac This is going to be one of those acquisition moments we look back on in a few years (months?) and think “wow! that really changed the game!” sort of like when Google acquired Writely to make Google Docs... OpenAI’s Sky for Mac wants to be your new work buddy and maybe your…

Integral Plasma Ecology: Toward a Cosmological Theology of Energy and Relation I'm talking about plasma and ecology a little more... there's a lot here that needs to be explored. Abstract This paper develops the concept of Integral Plasma Ecology as a framework that bridges physics, cosmology, and…

Connecting Churches with the Communities in Our Distracted Age I don't like the “consumers” language for ontological and theological reasons, but the intent is still helpful. He’s not wrong here… and it’s something that nonprofits and churches could learn as well if they want to get past the noise…

Prompt Injection Attacks and ChatGPT Atlas Good points here by Simon Willison about the new ChatGPT Atlas browser from OpenAI... Introducing ChatGPT Atlas: I'd like to see a deep explanation of the steps Atlas takes to avoid prompt injection attacks. Right now it looks like the main defense is…

“Nightmare for College Students” We were hit by the Canvas outage at CIIS… it’s amazing that I can have classes for my PhD work with students from around the world, but this is a stark reminder of how delicate those connections are when we rely on centralized technology/power/food production…

Amazon’s Plans to Replace 500,000 Human Jobs With Robots Speaking of AI… this isn’t only about warehouse jobs but will quickly ripple out to other employers (and employees)... Amazon Plans to Replace More Than Half a Million Jobs With Robots - The New York Times: Executives told Amazon’s board…

OpenAI’s ChatGPT Atlas Browser Going to be interesting to see if their new browser picks up adoption in the mainstream and what new features it might have compared to others (I’ve tested out Opera and Perplexity’s AI browsers but couldn’t recommend at this point)… agentic browsing is definitely…

12 Cedar Roses For Merianna on our 12th Wedding Anniversary... 12 Cedar Roses From the cedars in our yard,I gathered what time had folded ascones that had become blossoms,spirals turning the world inwardlike memory, like prayer. 12 cedar roses,for twelve years that have ripened into ring and…

I always did the “Here are the 10 exam questions for the course, you’ll receive 5 of them, and answer 3 of your choice” route for exams as a middle school and high school teacher. It’s incredibly powerful to give young people agency over their learning.

Sheldrake’s Lecture on Panentheism at St James Church Sheldrake is one of my favorite thinkers and a huge inspiration for my own work. Great lecture here from my process theology meets medieval Christian theology point of view... well worth your time: In this talk, Rupert Sheldrake explores…

A House Divided

Untitled You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. -Ray Bradbury

R.I.P. Phyllis Trible One of those amazing thinkers and scholars who helped shape my own theological journey (first read her work as an Undergrad at Wofford College, and it both answered and provoked questions I had been and continue to wrestle with), along with countless others. Her work on…

John as the Fourth Synpotic Gospel? Great podcast episode here with the incredible Helen Bond and the always insightful Mark Goodacre, who may or may not have been a listener of Thinking Religion in the Thomas Whitley era... Since the mid-twentieth century, it has been routine for scholars to see…

Lead has been with a very long time Fascinating new info... Hominins suffered lead poisoning starting at least 2 million years ago - Ars Technica: Lead exposure sounds like a modern problem, at least if you define “modern” the way a paleoanthropologist might: a time that started a few thousand…

Pope Leo throwing shade on my Cubbies www.reddit.com/r/sports/s/fBTCyMhaNh I kind of love it.

Biodiversity Outcomes Bonds I know there have been various takes on the Black Rhino bond from 2022 and the long-term outcomes there, but I’m still fascinated (from a philosophical and theological point of view) about these types of mechanisms and initiatives… says a good deal about our Human…

Here’s some new thought technology How am I just now reading this?? I should OF read it years ago as a teacher... Would of, could of, might of, must of | Sentence first: Unstressed ’ve is phonetically identical (/əv/) to unstressed of: hence the widespread misspellings would of, could of, should…

buy the stupid thing In the context of notebooks (also my favorite being Field Notes that I use almost religiously… and I don’t take that adjective lightly), but also my experience as a 47-year-old rounding the bases... You should absolutely buy that stupid thing: Let this be a lesson: you should…

The Problem(s) with Biofuels New alarming study out about the many problems with biofuels and why solar would be a much much better option for local communities and global megacorps to employ... Biofuels globally emit more CO2 than the fossil fuels they… | T&E: Global biofuels production emits 16%…

Ok, this might be one of my fav recent posts that I've done just for the short story at the end that ChatGPT 5 generated based on the article text and the image it generated...

The Pile of Clothes on a Chair Fascinating essay by Anthropic’s cofounder (Claude is their popular AI model, and the latest 4.5 is one of my favorite models at the moment… Apologies for the header… Claude generated that based on the essay’s text. You’re welcome?)… ontologies are going to have to…

Revenge of the Liberal Arts There are certainly some things I don't see eye-to-eye on in the entirety of this podcast regarding our near future with AI, but I did like this part about young (and old) people reading Homer and Shakespeare to find capable understandings ("skills") that will be needed…

AI Data Centers Disaster Important post here along with the environmental and ecological net-negative impacts that the growth of mega-AI-data-centers are having (Memphis) and certainly will have in the near future. Another reason we all collectively need to demand more distributed models of…

Recovering Entranced and Enchanted Christianity I had the chance to read Vernon’s work here over the summer and found myself relating a good deal to some of his insights and arguments, particlarly as they relate to my studies of Religion and Ecology (but also evaluating the frameworks of…

The Appalachian Ice Age Fascinating video here… we live in the Piedmont of the southern Appalachians, so I’m always interested in human and earth stories about their history... The Appalachian Ice Age - YouTube

Black Walnut Tree Reading From my tracking page... Emmylou has picked up on my habit (a consecrated habit, to use the Merleau-Ponty phrasing), and I walked out into the backyard on Sunday to find her reading aloud with the Black Walnut, as I often do during the week. The tree has begun dropping…

Renewables Pass Coal’s Sare in Global Electricity Generation China is leading the way here in solar… It’s time for our leaders and economy here in the US to start waking up to reality. That won’t happen in the current scenario of our political landscape, obviously, but there needs to be…

Yale Div’s Living Village We were fortunate enough to be able to travel up to New Haven to see the construction of the Living Village this summer at my alma mater, Yale Div this past June… so excited to see this become a reality and hope it’s a sign of more things to come for institutions living…

Insurance in the Era of Climate Collapse We were enjoying the beautiful weather here in Spartanburg, SC at our local community gathering spot / coffee shop / bar / outdoor space and had a conversation with a friend about her ongoing frustrations to get their home renovated after Helene last year…

Inside the Fight Against Trump’s Alaska LNG Pipeline Beautiful (but also depressing if you’re frustrated and anxious about such things like me) article here regarding the need to stop using extractive fossil fuels (that are now based on antiquated technologies and inefficient methods in order to…

Pope Leo’s Ice Blessing We need to hear this in our Protestant churches in the United States every Sunday (and Wednesday and Sunday night and Tuesday during gatherings, etc.). Glad to see Leo taking on the ecological mantle from Francis. Emphasis mine in the quote here... Pope Leo XIV blesses…

R.I.P. Jane Goodall Jane Goodall, legendary primatologist, has died at age 91 : NPR: In just a few months, Goodall a made a major discovery. Chimps could make and use tools — as she learned by watching a chimp she'd named David Greybeard. (Goodall has called him "my favorite chimpanzee of all…

JUST IN: Jane Goodall, primatologist who transformed our understanding of the lives of apes, has died, according to an announcement from the Jane Goodall Institute.

The New Ecozoic Reader Prof. Sam Mickey discusses the volume he edited titled The New Ecozoic Reader this week. If you’re anywhere interested or adjacent to the study of Religion and Ecology, I highly suggest listening to the podcast episode here as well as reading at least the Introduction here…

Lost Connections Great post from Merianna about relational being and our real need to have connections that will help us imagine our way out of our modern spiritual crisis in the context of Hurricane Helene... Lost Connection - by Merianna Harrelson: Without thinking I asked, “Where you all right?…

Pakistan at the Epicenter of Climate Change Worth your time to read... As Floods Worsen, Pakistan Is the Epicenter of Climate Change - Yale E360: “Monsoon storms are now forming in a warmer atmosphere that holds and dumps far more moisture in short bursts, causing flash floods and landslides,”…

Viriditas and the Ecology of the Cross: Hildegard’s Greening Vision Meets a Kenotic Cosmos Greening Ancient Wisdom for Today’s Crisis On many mornings, I find myself sitting beneath the black walnut tree in my backyard, contemplating how an ancient abbess’s wisdom speaks to our ecological crisis.…

Rembrandt’s Dog in ‘The Night Watch’ Fascinating story... What’s the Dog in Rembrandt’s ‘The Night Watch’? A Longtime Mystery Is Solved. - The New York Times: “Even 400 years after the creation of one of the most known paintings, you can still discover things,” Dibbits said. “With art, you will…

Platonic Biology Prof. Segall (one of my amazing Prof’s at CIIS) has a fantastic post here that I very much agree with... (30) The Return of Platonic Biology - by Matthew David Segall: Process philosophy offers an alternative proposal that avoids the extremes of both reductive materialism and…

Streaming as We Knew It is Dead Fascinating stats… and “piracy” is about to regain its steam as it did around 2007 when things got out of hand with digital download pricing… “content is key” as Bowie wrote in one of his notebooks and people will find their way to the content they’re looking for if…