Personal Faith

DISPLAY:

My Job or My Calling?

Have you ever questioned why you work in academia? I have. In a particularly challenging part of the 2023-2024 academic year, I questioned my place in academia. I confided in a sister in Christ and shared that ‘endless emails and zoom calls’ certainly couldn’t be my calling. Her simple response gave me pause. She said, […]

Prompted to Pray

“You won’t believe how God just answered our prayers!” I sent this message to our Faculty Commons leaders after our monthly gathering where we pray for our campus and students. That morning after reading and reflecting on Psalm 3:3, “But you, O LORD, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my […]

A Joy-Filled Academic Life

A friend loves at all times,and a brother is born for a time of adversity. – Proverbs 17:17 In Spring 2021, I was diagnosed with cancer. I was serving as interim department co-chair at this time while our department chair was on sabbatical. This was during the pandemic, and I was working from home. Soon, […]

A Combative Faith

I was raised in a religious family, attending church regularly and being educated in religious schools from my early childhood up through college at Villanova University. While I had the benefit of being raised in a Christian home, my faith walk has not been a smooth or easy one. Abuse and Dysfunction I had an […]

Why Do I Hesitate?

Joe and I are retired industry executives and had been colleagues for years at the same company. Our wives also have the same career field – nursing. Together the four of us enjoyed dinners together, traded recipes, traveled, and wandered the stalls at farmers markets. Because of our shared history, it surprised no one that […]

Deep Desire to Represent Christ

Just before 5pm on a Thursday, I tried to be inconspicuous as I joined the small cluster of people waiting in a hallway outside a classroom. My stomach was a little jumpy and my hands not quite dry; it had taken me four years to get to this point, and now that it was here, […]

Going Public with My Faith

When I started as a professor ten years ago, I wondered how to go public with my faith. My own time as a university student and follower of Jesus had been a great journey of discovery: of life, of growing up, of traveling, of reflection, of learning…and all of this with Jesus himself and many […]

Perhaps Theology

The mottled light filtered through a large canopy of trees as we stepped off the train and onto the platform serving the tiny rural village. A few moments later, my friend and I came to, what appeared to be, the main street running east and west through town. We paused long enough to look both […]

The Checkbox Life and Cicadas

I remember each of my children’s university commencements, but one will not soon be forgotten. One of my kids was running late to graduation and sped into the stadium parking lot at the last minute, sprinting – gown flapping in hand – to make the processional line. After the ceremony, as lunch grew near, we inquired: […]

God Never Fails to Surprise

To my knowledge, I never had a Christian professor during my decade of undergraduate and graduate studies. When I became an assistant professor, I wanted to be the Christian professor I never knew. . While I had my own idea of how that would take shape, God fulfilled my desire in surprising ways. Soon after arriving […]