Greetings from the Most Dangerous City in the U.S.

If you haven’t yet heard, St. Louis is the most dangerous city in the U.S., at least according to this report, out today. In the study, the authors say that St. Louis…
“…has long been in the upper tiers of the annual ranking of the nation’s safest and most dangerous cities…violent crime surged nearly 20 percent [...]

Unbelievable

Though we’re out of town, we just watched the Cardinals beat the Tigers in the fifth (and final) game of the World Series in St. Louis. Having gone to a couple of games this summer and following them all through the post-season, I have to say it’s a little unbelievable that we won. Since when [...]

The Blur Is Accurate

Fall break starts Thursday, and I’m really looking forward to some time off. Not sure where the past week has gone, but it has (gone, that is), and the picture above of one of my Hebrew vocab cards illustrates my blurry perspective on most things right now.
Our plans for the break aren’t too exciting: I [...]

Hope

In the midst of midterms, I had the thought today that there were enough things, ideas, projects, opportunities, and pursuits swirling around me for which I have very specific and deep hopes. And, I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to record some of them. I’m not sure how interesting this may be, but you’re [...]

(Mid-) October Update from the Dunhams

Last week in Covenant’s library, I “supervised” six of my 16 Wildwood high school students researching topics for the five-page paper I assigned them in the Bible class I teach. The paper is rather involved for high school students (you can read the assignment here), and some of them were feeling overwhelmed at the idea [...]

Put Me in, Coach, I’m Ready to Play

In case you mistook it from Friday night’s television broadcast of the Cards beating the Mets, the picture above is from a trip to the farm back in July (the corn in the background probably gave it away – not much of that at Shea Stadium).
I used to pitch in high school (going 6-3 my [...]

Marrying (or Divorcing?) for Love

More interesting reading on marriage, this time from Counseling and Therapy for Couples (2nd edition) by Lynn L. Long and Mark E. Young. This textbook was written by two college professors on “couples” counseling, not “marriage” counseling, as “the old standby term, ‘marriage counseling,’ is fast fading from the therapist’s lexicon because, today, many people [...]

What a Difference 31 Years Makes

From a discussion with my four-year-old this morning:
Daddy: “So what’s on your schedule today?”
Four-year-old (quite happily): “Blah, blah, blah. That’s what’s on my schedule today.”
Ah, to be four again…

Weekend Links

Here are a few weekend links you might find engaging:

Good, concise thoughts on inward-facing intellectualism at Agkyra (line I most appreciated: The problem facing evangelicals, particularly in this area (of intellectualism) is not that we’re anti-intellectual as much as that we concentrate our intellectual talents on a narrow range of concerns.)

50 motivations to make yourself [...]

Leaving, Cleaving

I (very) briefly researched the topic of twenty-somethings and whether, when, and how they tend to leave or cleave in marriage, as living at home and marrying later seems all the rage among twenty- and even thirty-somethings in our 21st century American culture.
From my own observation, it seems 30 is the new 20. Traditional expectations [...]

Possibly In Need of a Little Persecution?

As part of my Pastoral and General Epistles class with Dr. Dan Doriani, I’m studying the book of Hebrews, which essentially means doing some Greek translation, following along in the lecture notes, and reading William Lane’s excellent commentary, Hebrews: A Call to Commitment. Lane does an amazing job of analyzing and understanding the structure and [...]

New Header

Special thanks to friend Kent Needler for customizing a header for Second Drafts. Kent’s original idea included two beer mugs floating around. I had to convince him books were better.

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I know, I know…too many baseball posts of late. But it’s hard not to get excited, especially since we live in a city that will play host to some of the games later in the month (hopefully way later in the month). Granted, if I were a betting man (which I’m not), I probably wouldn’t [...]