Thank you, Ken Mick, for this recording. Rehearsal at Lipscomb University, arranged by Dr. Gary Wilson for a choral performance.
I just love The Arcadian Wild. Here’s a reel of “Man in Room 39,” a song from their first album. “Man in Room 39” is a quietly rousing and subversively liberating song in the best folk tradition. I feel emboldened on behalf of every young person I know, not to mention myself, every time I hear it.
It’s impossible to choose my favorite song by the Arcadian Wild: “Benediction,” “The Graduate,” the whole of their Welcome Reframed and Christmas albums, “If we don’t make it out alive” (performed at 2025 BTLOG). But this one is right there with them. My study on campus has “Room 39” on the door.
Windowless room, number 39
Holds an honest man with a thirsty mind
But there are no rivers inside these walls
And so he sings
Roaring brooks and cherry trees
This is the place my heart longs to be
The blossoms in the water are calling me
His glossy shoes only hold him down
They were never meant to cover ground
So he slips them off and frees his soul
Then he goes to
Roaring brooks and cherry trees
This is the place my heart longs to be
The blossoms in the water are calling me
Remember a mountaintop has no roof
And a home in the wild needs no window
Leave your cage, break your chains
Roar your name
And sing
Roaring brooks and cherry trees
This is the place my heart longs to be
The blossoms in the water are calling me
Roaring brooks and cherry trees (yeah)
This is the place my heart longs to be
The blossoms in the water are calling me
Written by: Everett Davis, Lincoln Mick, Sarah Jane Wood.
“Why did not somebody teach me the constellations, and make me at home in the starry heavens, which are always overhead, and which I don’t half-know to this day?” — Thomas Carlyle
Old books offer us the opportunity to recover meaning in what we do. The night sky is filled with hundreds of stories which remind us that a knowledge of the heavens has always been part of what makes us human.
What memories do you have of watching the stars? What stories do you like to tell about the night sky?
The stars are a great example of using rare books in teaching. They enchant us with wonder, and fit in with an interdisciplinary, unit studies approach.
We will be in two spaces: Murphy and Harlow. We will examine rare books in Murphy and do activities in Harlow.
Hevelius star atlas. 2nd “Golden Atlas.” Includes three books, usually published separately: (1) Uranographia, or Firmamentum Sobiescianum sive Uranographia (“The Firmament of King Sobiesci, or Map of the Heavens”; Gdansk, 1690); bound with (2) Prodromus Astronomiae (“Preliminary Discourse for Astronomy”; Gdansk, 1690); bound with (3) Catalogus stellarum fixarum (“Catalog of the Fixed Stars”; Gdansk, 1687). Can you find the title pages and frontispieces for each of these three books?
In a public presentation, Starstruck Tonight, Candace and I describe most of the astronomical works on display in this section, along with poetry and literature about the night sky.
repository.ou.edu: Many of the books displayed are digitized and available in the library’s open access online library.
Become a researcher at the OU History of Science Collections:
You are welcome to come back as a researcher. You do not need to be an academic scholar. There is a registration process. After that, the books will be brought to you in the Reading Room. It’s good to request the books in advance so they can be pulled and waiting for you. All this is explained on the web page for the History of Science Collections. Go to the University of Oklahoma Libraries website (libraries.ou.edu) and navigate to the page for the History of Science Collections. There you can register online, request the books you want to see ahead of time, and ask any questions you have for Collections staff. And then come and sit with the books.
He meets her there
In the garden
Where death had reigned unhindered
Where tears beyond count have fallen
The ache of loss unassuaged by the toil of hands
Longing to recreate the garden lost
He meets her there
Where all harms have begun to unravel
Where tender flesh exhales with fresh breath
And the once broken heart beats strong and sure
A long descent has become ascent
Bringing all up with him
He meets her there
Speaks her name
She is seen and heard
Known
And she knows beyond hope
That he has come back
For her
She has not been left behind
He meets us there
Speaks our names with a tenderness
That says
Look up
I know you
Your story is mine
And now my story is yours
The current issue of Episodes: Journal of International Geoscience, sponsored by the International Union of Geological Scientists (IUGS), is devoted to “Women in Geoscience.”
Contents of Episodes 49(2026):
Heejung Kim, Dolores Pereira, Kathleen Histon, and Martina Kölbl-Ebert, “Empowerment of Women in Geoscience toward the Achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 5 (Gender Equality)” Episodes 2026; 49(1): 1-5.
Minha Lee, Heejung Kim, and Dolores Pereira, “East to West collaboration for a gender equality in STEM” Episodes 2026; 49(1): 7-15.
Martina Kölbl-Ebert, “Women in Geology: An Historical Review” Episodes 2026; 49(1): 17-24.
Susan Turner, “IUGS: How did women fare?” Episodes 2026; 49(1): 25-31.
Aja B. Tolman and Kerry V. Magruder, “Silvia Fernanda de Mendonça Figueirôa: Brazilian Historian of Geology and First Woman President of the International Commission on the History of Geological Sciences (INHIGEO)” Episodes 2026; 49(1): 33-40.
Zdeňka Petáková and Gabriela Langhammerová, “Survey of Twenty-Five Women Geoscientists in the Czech Republic: How to Become a Geologist − Motivating the Next Generation” Episodes 2026; 49(1): 41-45.
Cynthia V. Burek and Bettie Higgs, “An investigation into the public awareness of famous women geoscientists” Episodes 2026; 49(1): 47-56.
Episodes is open access and all articles are now available for download. My thanks to Silvia Figueirôa, my co-author Aja Tolman, our anonymous reviewers, and Kathleen Histon as editor for her help with our article.
Julia Golding, Malcolm Guite, Simon Horobin, Wardrobes and Rings: Through Lenten Lands with the Inklings (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2025). (Amazon)
Drawing on the work of some of the Inklings’ most well-known members, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, as well as friends of the Inklings such as Dorothy Sayers and T.S. Eliot, Wardrobes and Rings explores through their eyes a faith which is tinged with seriousness, creativity and joy. This devotional draws on their writings – fiction, poetry, and essays – offering daily readings and reflections that illuminate the path to the cross and resurrection. Weekly themes such as temptation, time, nature and creativity guide the way. Written by Julia Golding, Malcolm Guite and Simon Horobin: a novelist, a poet-priest, and an Oxford professor all deeply immersed in the Inklings’ world and wisdom, Wardrobes and Rings invites you to rediscover Lent through the lens of imagination-infused faith.
This is not your average book about the Inklings. Rather, I know I will find it worth turning to again and again. Nor is it your average Lenten devotional. I will want to reach for it throughout the year.
Candace and I have added it to our morning prayer, reading one daily meditation after the psalm. The short format prompts each writer to distill their thoughts into free flowing, conversational prose, packed with insight and hope appropriate to the transfigurations of Lent, as we turn from winter into spring, waiting for Easter.
Links:
Listen to Julia Golding and Malcolm Guite discuss the book with Jim Beitler and Aaron Hill on a recent episode of The Wade Center Podcast.
An audio book is available in which each daily meditation is read by the author who wrote it.
The C. S. Lewis Center of Sterling College (Kansas) is hosting a conference, “No Ordinary People,” March 26-27, 2026. It kicks off with an evening presentation by Dan Hamilton Thursday evening, and features a keynote by Nathan King on Friday morning. Papers will be presented through the day on Friday, culminating in an evening performance by the Ghost Light Players. Rare items from the C. S. Lewis Center will be available for viewing.
Schedule of Events
Thursday, March 26th, 7:00 P.M., Mabee Library Lewis Center. Dan Hamilton. “Beyond the Text.” Join literary historian Dan Hamilton as he uncovers the fascinating detective work and unexpected insights discovered in books written by C.S. Lewis and the Inklings.
Friday, March 27th, 10:00 A.M., Culbertson Auditorium. Dr. Nathan L King. “Good Minds for a Good God: Discipleship, Education, and Virtues of the Mind.”
Friday, March 27th, Mabee Library. Paper Presentations will be happening throughout the day. Selected papers written by students, faculty, and Lewis scholars in response to the conference theme.
Friday, March 27th, 12:00 P.M., Cornerstone. Lunch at the Sterling College Cafeteria. Registrants may purchase lunch at the Sterling College Cafeteria for a discounted price ($8.99) when they show their conference name badge.
Friday, March 27th, 6:00 P.M., Culbertson Auditorium. Worship Service with the GhostLight Players. A culminating worship service featuring an artistic response to the conference theme from GhostLight Players, Sterling College’s theatre outreach team.
Nathan King (Whitworth University), speaker. Book: Nathan L. King, The Excellent Mind: Intellectual Virtues for Everyday Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021). (Amazon)
At Christmas this year, Michael Barfield (a.k.a. The Painted Soul) gave me ten copies of Eden’s Lost, a CD with included artwork and lyrics (I’ve only got one left, so don’t ask). Eric Barfield has just put it online, sans artwork and lyrics, commenting “this album represents a sample from every era of his work from the 1970’s through today.” Stream (but not download) it here.
Hannah Anderson, “The Physics of Grace (and other such nonsense),” at The Mockingbird conference “Anchored by Grace,” in Charlottesville, VA, Nov. 15, 2025 (watch at Vimeo).
Makoto Fujimura’s new book, Art Is: A Journey into the Light, reflects facets of all his earlier works and casts new light on what it means to live a creative life. Without superseding his earlier works, Art Is is an excellent first read for anyone wishing to begin reading Fujimura. All of his themes that I find encouraging are here, presented with the texture of his art itself:
We are border-stalkers, who journey on the margins.
Reality is beautiful. Beauty is hidden. Beauty and hope grow in sorrow.
There is more to reality than meets the eye. Art can help us see reality in its dimensions of depth more clearly. We can still hear the music when we escape the reductionism of modernity.
We are called to live in the new creation, already and not yet.
We are called not to culture war but to generative culture care.
Makoto is an artist of light, a geologist of the canvas.
Do not expect an abstract argument — not even Makoto’s art is properly appreciated as abstract. (It is concrete, as mineral sands are concrete.) Rather, the book exemplifies what Jeremy Begbie calls “theology through the arts” — not constructing theology on the basis of the arts, but reflecting on the reality which art opens up to us and considering how it meshes with deeper theological motifs. Mako explains: “Japanese writings are often lyrical and allusive, rather than linear and descriptive. They are image-based and focus on the affective and do not have clear outlines of an argument.” This is a gift to us, and reading it becomes a practice of attentiveness, like watching a bird build its nest.
With Art Is… journey into light, Mako invites us into a deeper understanding of his art, and how it has been for him a portal from darkness to light. I’ve read it twice now, and it will reward reading again. Next time I think I’ll make a list of the myriad of ways the phrase “Art is…” is completed in the book. “Art is a journey into light” just about sums it all up, but there are many subthemes. To illustrate, I will look through my annotations and marked pages… here are a few:
Art is the quest of what life is
Art is awareness
Art is a gift
Art is impossible, a gift of grace
Art is slow
Art is a prismatic journey of beauty
Art is a language to dream with
Art is a quest for authenticity
Art is a path toward truth-telling
Art is a feast in a scarcity-filled world
Art is a journey into hope
Art is generational (in multiple senses)
Art is integration (of faith and reason, science and imagination, etc.)
Art is a granular attentiveness to a greater Reality
Art is hospitality
Art is service
Art is sacrifice
Art is a place where everyone’s broken journey is honored and beheld until each of the broken pieces can be beautiful unto themselves
Art is beholding
Art is being attentive to fragile beauty
Art is joining in the suffering of nature
Art is play
Art is a path to receive and cultivate the gift of life
Art is a path toward loving what we once disdained (like dandelions)
Art is the resilience of hope
Art is always cross-cultural
Art is a flow, from the margins
Art is a liturgy of peace
Art beholds mystery
Art is a journey into love’s remains, prismatic surfaces, shards of mystery, a portal into a greater Reality
Art is a miracle
Art is to be filled with gratitude
Art is not mere self-expression
Art is prayer
Art is a response to love
Art is an expression of love
Art is a path to explore the substance of trauma
Art is like the journey of migrating birds to the light
Art is a portal to our true home, like a teahouse, like a Listening Room
Art is a journey into multi-dimensional and multi-layered thinking
Art is a window into relational realities
Art unveils interdependence
Art is a magnificent longing
Art is a New Creation story
Art is a path home in the light
Wow, I didn’t expect to find so many. And these were just within the passages I had marked. You will find your own that speak to you.
This morning, Dec 12, I made it to Fort Lee, to The Estuary Gallery. I wanted to spend some time just sitting in front of a captivating “painting” by Makoto, which he titles Ps 139. It’s 48×144 inches, mineral pigments, gesso on canvas, created in 2020 (see his description of a related piece). I’ve written about it here (“Psalm 139 in Crystals”). It overwhelmed me when I first saw it, and I choked back tears. Today, then, was a pilgrimage.
Sitting there was like being in the final scene of Tree of Life. Or Contact. It is a portal of hope to the new creation. Exactly like Ps 139, its title, suggests. Every word and phrase of that Psalm comes alive through this work of art. (Take time to read it now. And in vs. 21-22, substitute “resist” for “hate.”) I felt beheld, known, all my pains and sorrows, joys and longings. All tears transformed. The darkness is not dark to God; there is nothing that death can take away which God cannot re-create and renew. As in Adam all died, so in Christ shall all be made alive. The Spirit rises like Living Water within us. All shall be well. As I wrote before: “Unforgettable. I felt searched and known indeed by a love greater than the stars.” This time it was everything I remembered and more.
As I wrote before: “I am reluctant even to call Mako’s art ‘paintings.’ They are multi-layered crystal refractions.” No photos can do this one justice. The light refracts on its surface like colored diamonds. It simply cannot be replicated on any digital screen. The refracted sands — no two alike — make the piece dynamic, shifting, shimmering like stars, uniting earth and sky together. Example: If you see a little white streak left of center near the top on the first photo, you might be able to notice that it has turned bright blue when viewed from the left side.
No wonder that Mako often reminds us of William Blake’s poetic exegesis of Psalm 139:
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
Indeed, Mako’s art is to show us worlds through grains of sand.
I’m very much looking forward to participating in this community event. And I’m grateful to be invited to dialogue with Mako on creativity in the arts (as conveyed in Art Is) and the natural sciences (as presented in my little interpretative essay, “Poetry includes science”: George MacDonald and the Scientific Imagination). Participants will be given a copy of the current draft of that essay. I am in talks with Winged Lion Press for possible publication in 2026. Contact me if you would like to read a draft.
And here’s a post of Eric Barfield, a friend and a musician in Nashville who has been reading Mako’s books. Makes me want to be there, to experience that kind of music in that kind of way. Eric’s post juxtaposes a recent musical experience with comments on Mako’s art. It prompts reflection, times two, as music and art each illumine the other.
Update after the retreat
To each of you who participated in the retreat this weekend, here is my prayer for you:
Enter the wild with care, my love
And speak the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow…
It seems to me that these singers are describing what you are doing as you enter into your art. From the wild, you are showing forth the things you see. In the darkness, beauty will take root and, in community, thrive and grow. Through your art you will carry us, in the reality of the Spirit’s work within, around, and through us, into the New Creation. Thank you.
Speak their names: This post provides context for the above song, with a liturgy at the end (scroll down to the bottom). “Speaking names in love,” is one way — like doing your art — to practice living in the New Creation.
Painters Prophets Poets: This post has a downloadable PDF that explores Music of the Spheres (Section 3, #38-56). Several of you were interested in hearing more about that. There’s also a video here of Malcolm Guite delighting in the feast of books and reading one of his own poems on music of the spheres. If you’re looking for a sequel to “From Music of the Spheres to the Harmony of the Universe” (an Appendix — behind the veil! — in my MacDonald essay), start here. Bonus: other stories that make it into this PDF are some Japanese works in tribute to Mako and Haejin, some works of C. S. Lewis, Kepler’s explanation of the Star of Bethlehem (appropriate for reading this Epiphany), one of my favorite stories of women in science (search for Elizabeth Hevelius), and a section on science and art from Leonardo to Galileo (which I hinted at in my remarks on stage). As with the MacDonald essay, read this PDF not for information, not in haste, but as lectio divina, a form of storytelling closer to poetry than to an article at Wikipedia.
And finally, what a gift of beauty to us was the snow! I hope it did not cause you inconvenience or hazard, but for me, it made my spirit soar. So I leave you with one more quotation from MacDonald, from a book set at Christmastime with a theme of how storytelling heals the soul:
As I led Adela, well wrapped in furs, down the steps to put her into the carriage, I felt by the wind, and saw by the sky, that a snowstorm was at hand. This set my heart beating with delight, for after all I am only what my friends call me – an old boy; and so I am still very fond of snow and wind. Of course this pleasure is often modified by the recollection that it is to most people no pleasure, and to some a source of great suffering. But then I recover myself by thinking, that I did not send for the snow, and that my enjoyment of it will neither increase their pains nor lessen my sympathies. And so I enjoy it again with all my heart. George MacDonald, from Adela Cathcart, ch. IV.
Update January 16, 2025
On Goldenwood’s aptly-named “Enlivening Work” podcast, they’ve just released a recording of the conversation between me and Mako and David Kim, held on the campus of Princeton Seminary as a public event during the retreat:
Goldenwood Institute, “Why Wonder in the History of Science Helps Us See Our World Anew,” dialogue on creativity in art and science with Makoto Fujimura and Kerry Magruder, moderated by David Kim, December 13, 2025, Gambrell Room, Scheide Hall at Princeton Theological Seminary. Recording available on the “Enlivening Work” podcast, January 16, 2026. Show notes:
“This conversation between artist and Goldenwood Institute Dean of Nature Makoto Fujimura and historian of science Kerry Magruder was recorded live last month in Princeton at a Goldenwood event titled “Why Wonder in the History of Science Helps Us See Our World Anew.”
Moderated by Goldenwood CEO David Kim, they explore how wonder and imagination are essential to both scientific discovery and artistic practice. Drawing on the lives and work of figures such as Kepler, Galileo, George MacDonald, Darwin, and C.S. Lewis, this wide-ranging conversation invites us to rediscover a deeper way of seeing—one that awakens hope, enlivens faith, and helps us reimagine our work and our world.”
My thanks to Mako and David and the Goldenwood staff for their invitation to participate in these indeed enlivening events.
The gospel — the mystery of the ages now revealed in Christ — consists of four wondrous realities. “Gospel” literally means “joy news.”
These four wondrous realities are joyful “mysteries” in the sense that for each of them “the last word can never be said.”
The pdf devotes one column to each reality. Rows correspond to:
an icon (could be drawn on a napkin)
a mystery
a scripture
a summary
a description
an exploration, and
an application to life
Start with just the first row, in which each reality is represented by an icon that could be drawn on a napkin. Then, as you wish, read the next row horizontally. Just read one row at a time across the four realities. Read slowly; there’s no need to read more than one row per sitting; save the later rows for other times. Or read any column vertically. For example, during the Advent and Christmas seasons, run your eye down the left column (as in the text below). And so with other columns for different seasons in the church year.
The Incarnation (left column)
Mystery: In this season we celebrate the first mystery, the Incarnation.
Scripture: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)
Summary: Jesus of Nazareth is the eternal God the Son, who came to earth to live as fully human. In him we may know God face-to-face.
Description: The spiritual reality is that, through God the Holy Spirit, we are brought into the mystery of the Incarnation. The Incarnation is historical but not merely historical. Jesus has dates: born in the reigns of Augustus Caesar and Herod the Great, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate in the reigns of Tiberius Caesar and Herod Antipas. Yet because Jesus is also divine, the Incarnation continues as reality past, present, and future, transforming the entire universe.
Exploration: As we celebrate during the Christmas season, Jesus is Immanuel, “God with us,” not a God who is remote from us. Startlingly, the true God became truly human; not just God-like or human-like, but really God and really human.
In this baby in Bethlehem, this man from Nazareth, God is revealed in our human flesh. He has come to live among us. He is human forever; he will never set his humanity aside. He relocated from heavenly glory to take up residence within the flesh of broken, fallen, suffering humanity, so that we might know the presence of God with us in grace and glory.
Application: Love one other on the model of the Incarnation. This means taking the first step in reconciliation. Don’t recoil, don’t wait for another to make the first move. Forgive before you are asked. Relocate to where another is. Enter into another’s pain and suffering, just as Christ took upon himself our our fallen human flesh. Embrace another’s weaknesses, be with them, for them, walk beside them, take their life into yours. Remember the old song “Walk a mile in my shoes”? An Incarnational approach to life means walking not only a mile, but a lifetime, in the other’s shoes.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12)
In Boston this morning, at the 2025 conference of the American Academy of Religion, I met with the friendly people from Accordance. It was great to see Roy Brown again, the inventor of Accordance in the 1990s. I remember when I first put the floppy disks into my Mac Plus (or maybe my Mac Classic). But today I had come for technical assistance. Sean helped me solve an obscure problem that arose back when I had Dropbox issues. The short of it is that my phone and laptop modules were out of sync. But now, as of the last few months, Accordance v14 syncs using its own servers. Like magic my problem was resolved in just a few minutes. Before this feature was implemented, I was stuck. Thank you, Sean and Billy and the Accordance team!
The sync feature shows how Accordance is not simply standing still in recent years but continuing to improve in significant ways.
New sync without Dropbox feature in Accordance 14.
For those new to Accordance or seeking a refresher, it’s hard to do better than this tutorial by the incomparable teacher David Lang, who patiently and expertly shows how Accordance uses secondary works (tools) to illuminate the primary sources (texts).
I also used the AAR conference as an occasion to add a few modules that had been on my wish list, including the NRSVue with Strong’s numbers, and the NIV2011 with G/K numbers and phrase tagging.
