FBC: Firebreak

Ballerina

Date Night

Saint Jerome in a Cave (1512)

Until recently, I had only been in one cave—a family-friendly tour at Silver Dollar City, dimly lit and narrated with theatrical flair. I remember the chill, the drip of water, the novelty. But it was spectacle, not encounter. A brush with the underground that didn’t yet stir anything deep.

This year, that changed. I’ve visited Bluff Dwellers Cave and others like it, and I’ve begun to feel the cave differently—not as a tourist or a child, but as a scholar. As someone attuned to the quiet labor of transformation.

Caves are alive. That’s the first realization. Not in the way we usually think of life—bursting, kinetic—but in the way that a breath is alive. Slow. Intentional. Enduring. Soda straws grow at a centimeter per hundred years. Curtains of calcite take centuries to unfold. Pools build their own barriers, molecule by molecule. Animals lose their pigment and eyes, adapting not to conquer, but to remain. And even humans leave their mark here—charcoal ash, flint tools, carved names and modern railings. The cave keeps it all. Nothing is erased. It is one of the few places where time accumulates instead of slipping away.

So when I encountered Albrecht Dürer’s Saint Jerome in a Cave (1512), I didn’t see just a saint, or a setting. I saw a scholar in solitude. A mirror. A myth of myself.

I, too, am in a cave right now.

Not of stone, but of focus. A cave made of books and screens, of marked-up PDFs and memo drafts. I’m in the late stages of my dissertation, working within the strange silence that research creates—where meaning reveals itself only through patient return. The days blur. The sun moves through the window and I barely register it. I sit. I code. I write. I revise. It is good work. But it is lonely.

That’s why Dürer’s image struck so deeply. Jerome sits in a stone grotto, surrounded by tools of thought: a manuscript, an inkpot, a skull. A lion lies near him, not fierce but faithful. The mouth of the cave opens to a world outside—water, ships, a crucifix on a hill—but Jerome stays within, translating the Word into something the world can read.

This is not escapism. It’s dedication.

And it speaks to what I feel now. To translate experience into theory. To take the voices of those I’ve interviewed and offer them back in a form that might mean something—not just to me, but to others. It is holy and ordinary work. Like Jerome, I labor in silence. Like the cave, I hold more than I can say.

Carl Jung wrote of the cave as one of our most primal archetypes: “It is the place of transformation, of descent and return. The place where the ego dies and the Self is born.” In dreams, he said, caves often symbolize the unconscious—the place where our hidden contents dwell, waiting to be encountered and integrated.

That’s what the dissertation process has been for me—not just a study, but a descent. A confrontation with doubt, with memory, with intellectual edges I didn’t know I had. I’ve surfaced questions about education, justice, and redemption that reach far beyond the classroom. And in that descent, I’ve had to let go of some things—certainty, perfectionism, even the desire to be understood.

I think that’s what the cave asks of us: not answers, but presence. Not speed, but stillness. I don’t conquer the cave. I belong to it, for a time.

What emerges from Jerome’s cave is not merely a manuscript—it is a sacred offering. The Latin Vulgate. The Bible itself, reborn through a scholar’s solitude. In that image, knowledge becomes sacrament. The Word made flesh, again. Not on a mountaintop, but in a cave.

There’s something powerful in that for me as an education scholar. We often speak of learning as light—enlightenment, illumination, the dawning of truth. But caves offer another metaphor: that wisdom is slow. That it forms in the dark. That our most meaningful insights are grown, not grasped.

Like the soda straws and cave pearls, what I’m working on now may not look like much in a single moment. But over time—across drafts, years, iterations—it becomes something. Something that holds. Something that might last.

When I step back from Dürer’s print, I no longer see just a saint. I see the scholar I’m trying to be.

I see that the work I do, tucked away and quiet, is not separate from the world—it prepares me for it. Like Jerome, I hope to emerge from this cave not with all the answers, but with something truer than certainty: understanding.

The cave holds me. Challenges me. Shapes me.

And maybe that’s the deeper invitation in both Dürer’s image and Jung’s vision—not to avoid the cave, but to enter it. To trust that what lives there—the silence, the labor, the stone, the self—is not an exile from life, but a deeper participation in it.

Because in caves, as in scholarship, the sacred doesn’t shout.

It drips.

On Turning 43

Dear journal, 

Today I turn 43. The number itself doesn’t strike me as old or young. It feels lived-in, like a well-worn coat that fits a little more comfortably each year. I mark the day not with celebration, but with reflection. A moment to take stock of the life I’ve built, the people who fill it, and the unexpected gifts that have arrived along the way. If there is a theme for this birthday, it is gratitude; for a life imperfect but meaningful, unfinished but fully mine.

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”
—Cicero

A Home Full of Life

I am grateful for my home. Not just for its shelter, but for the spirit within it. The ruling council—Cricket, Hopper, Louie, Betty, the wailing baby downstairs—govern not with decrees but with presence. Their rituals—purring on my chest, curling at my feet, wailing for attention—form the rhythms of my day. There is something sacred in these small lives. They offer companionship without demand, affection without pretense.

To wake up with a cat beside me, to feel the warmth of fur against my leg, is to remember that I am not alone. Theirs is a love rooted in presence. It asks nothing but trust.

“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened.”
—Anatole France

The Enduring Love of Family

At 43, I still have both of my parents. That alone is cause for gratitude. But what matters even more is that we like each other. We speak openly. We laugh together. We share a language of affection that time and effort have made possible. We have grown as individuals and, in doing so, have grown closer as a family.

Their love now feels less like authority and more like partnership. I see them more fully as people. And they, I think, see me the same.

“Rejoice with your family in the beautiful land of life.”
—Albert Einstein

A Brother, Forgiveness, and Friendship

My brother and I have known each other our whole lives, but only in recent years have we become true friends. That shift—subtle but profound—has changed everything. I am grateful for his forgiveness, for the way he has let me grow without chaining me to past versions of myself.

We travel together. We go to the movies. We sit in silence and talk about everything and nothing. We are no longer just brothers—we are companions through this stage of life. And that companionship has become one of the most stable and joyful relationships I have.

“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Work That Gives Back

I am grateful for my job—not just for the paycheck, but for the purpose. Teaching isn’t just a profession for me. It is a form of healing, both for my students and for myself. I see in them echoes of my younger self—confused, questioning, hopeful—and in showing up for them, I often find the guidance I once needed.

My classroom is a space where stories unfold. Where growth happens. Where laughter and pain sit side by side. I am allowed to be fully human in my work, and I am trusted to help others do the same. That is no small thing.

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
—Mahatma Gandhi

Friends Who Became Pillars

Some of the most important people in my life began as digital presences; names on a screen, typed-out laughter, late-night games. I never expected those connections to move beyond the virtual. But they did. And now, they are among the most real relationships I have.

These friends walk with me through life’s everyday moments. They celebrate my wins, mourn my losses, and hold space for the mundane in between. They remind me to drink life's water. To be gentle with myself. To rest. In them, I’ve found something that feels ancient and true—an echo of the kind of friendships the Stoics called soul-deep.

“A faithful friend is the medicine of life.”
—Ecclesiasticus 6:16

“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”
—Aristotle

A Life Still Becoming

At 43, I am no longer young. But I am not yet old. I dwell in the space between—this strange, rich, unpredictable middle. And in that space, I am learning that life is not about arrival but about unfolding. About presence. About grace. I have made mistakes. I’ve held regrets. But today, I am grateful not just for what I have, but for who I am becoming.

This birthday isn’t about the number. It’s about the heart. And mine is full.

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Always, 

Dave

Yellow Watermelon

Napping with Cats

Napping with Cats

by Dave

I settled in for a noble nap,

A midday drift, a dreamy gap.

But comfort, it would seem, must wait—

The Ruling Council had set their date.

First came Cricket, silver queen,

A regal blur of stately sheen.

She leapt with grace upon my chest,

Then sighed, as if to say, “You jest?”

Next, Hopper crept with hunting ease—

No prey, just toes beneath the fleece.

She claimed my shin, then tucked her head,

And made my blanket her homestead.

Louie followed, bold and wide,

With all the charm of youthful pride.

He flopped along my outstretched arm,

Purring chaos, warm and calm.

Three cats in place. I could not move.

A muscle twitched—they did not approve.

They formed a pile, a purring fort,

A furry siege with no retort.

But then—a cry! A squeak! A wail!

From downstairs came a kitten’s tale.

The baby Betty, newest face,

Proclaimed her need for love and space.

The Council froze. Their ears shot high.

“What is that sound?” said Hopper, wry.

“A coup?” asked Cricket. “She’s too small.”

Louie just blinked. “She’s got some gall.”

They disassembled, one by one,

Their royal nap was now undone.

Down they stalked with tails held firm—

To inspect this bold, gray tuxedo worm.

And me? Alone, still in repose,

But now alert from head to toes.

For peace is brief and naps are rare

When four cats rule your favorite chair.

Bluff Dwellers Cave