Daredevil: Born Again Season 2

Guardians of the Open Silence (2026)

There are landscapes that feel descriptive, and there are landscapes that feel diagnostic. The desert has always done both for me. Having recently spent time in the Southwest, I find the memory of that ecology lingering as I return to the unsettled rhythm of Midwestern spring, where one day insists on winter and the next suggests summer. The instability of the season mirrors the emotional oscillation of professional life lived in prolonged transition: hope followed by silence, effort followed by uncertainty. Yet the desert offers a different rhythm, one less governed by immediacy and more attuned to patience.

The desert does not promise ease, but it does promise coherence. Its ecology is structured not by abundance but by adaptation. Life persists there because organisms have learned how to live honestly within constraint. The towering cactus does not resist its environment; it grows in conversation with it. Its ribs expand when rain comes. Its roots stretch widely but shallowly, prepared to gather even brief moments of nourishment. What appears austere reveals itself, upon closer inspection, as deeply responsive.

For many years, working in alternative education has felt like inhabiting a professional desert. The work is meaningful, often urgent, yet not always easily legible within traditional institutional narratives. Roles that fall outside conventional categories can become difficult to explain in spaces structured around familiar definitions of classroom expertise. One can carry significant responsibility while remaining strangely peripheral to the dominant story of what counts. The result is not only professional frustration but a gradual shaping of posture. The shaping of an inclination to anticipate misunderstanding, to prepare explanation in advance, to protect against dismissal before it occurs.

Over time, environments shape organisms. In ecological terms, scarcity does not produce fragility; it produces specialization. Psychologically, repeated misrecognition can produce guardedness. I have often felt like the solitary cactus standing firm, storing what resources I can gather, protecting what I have built. Experiences of performance punishment, of being overlooked, of being treated as peripheral despite meaningful responsibility, do not dissipate simply because one wishes them to. They accumulate as professional memory. They influence tone, posture, and expectation. One learns to regulate exposure.

Cacti grow spines not primarily as weapons, but as instruments of survival. Their thorns create small shadows along the surface of the plant, reducing temperature and conserving precious moisture. The thorn is not an act of hostility; it is an act of regulation. It allows the plant to remain alive in conditions that would otherwise extract too much, too quickly. Yet every adaptation carries secondary consequences. The same structure that regulates temperature also creates distance. The same spines that preserve life can make approach more tentative. What developed as a means of survival can make closeness more difficult.

That is how this season has felt. Working where I have, I have developed thorns in order to survive professionally, not in order to keep others away. Yet I can see how the adaptation, once necessary, can become structural. Guardedness can become posture. Precision of speech can be heard as criticism. Clarity can be mistaken for resistance. The thorn is not the whole plant, but it is often the first feature encountered.

The Desert Fathers understood something about this formation through hardship. Abba Moses is recorded as saying, “Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.” Silence reveals the habits we develop in response to difficulty. It reveals how easily protective strategies can persist even when conditions begin to change. The desert clarifies not only the harshness of the environment, but the shape of the self that has learned to live within it.

A recent conversation with a trusted friend has encouraged me to reconsider the proportion of those defenses. Thorns serve a purpose, but they are not the whole story of the plant. A cactus is also a reservoir. It gathers and stores life. Birds nest within its arms. Shade forms at its base. When rain comes, blossoms appear. Blossoms which are brief yet vivid reminders that resilience and beauty are not mutually exclusive.

Abba Anthony observed, “From our neighbor is life and death.” The desert can appear solitary, yet its ecology is profoundly relational. Even widely spaced organisms participate in shared systems of survival. My friend’s encouragement reminded me that not all encounters reproduce prior disappointments. Some relationships restore proportion. They remind us that we are seen not only through institutional categories but through the eyes of those capable of recognizing continuity between who we are and what we are becoming.

It is possible to carry old climates into new landscapes. Adaptations developed under conditions of scarcity do not disappear simply because one hopes they might. One learns to expect drought even when rain is possible. Yet the desert teaches patience not only in survival but in response. Rain does come. Bloom does occur. Growth continues, often invisibly, before it becomes visible.

Abba Arsenius prayed, “Lord, lead me in the way of salvation, and keep me in silence.” Silence, in this sense, is not withdrawal but recalibration. It allows distance between past injury and present possibility. It creates space in which identity can be grounded not solely in prior experience but in emerging opportunity. Silence interrupts the reflex to defend before relationship has had time to develop.

There is a paradox within open landscapes. The horizon evokes both freedom and vulnerability. Without enclosure, one must decide how to move. Yet this openness also allows paths not previously visible. The desert does not dictate direction, but it invites intentionality. Its spaciousness creates the possibility of new orientation.

Professionally, I recognize the truth that remaining where I am may limit how others are able to interpret my experience. Institutions develop habits of recognition just as ecosystems develop patterns of growth. Movement may be necessary, not as escape, but as continuation. The desert traveler does not leave unchanged; the desert becomes part of the traveler’s way of seeing. Yet adaptation need not produce permanent defensiveness. It can produce discernment.

Abba Poemen taught, “Do not give your heart to that which does not satisfy your heart.” Recognition is meaningful, but it is not the sole measure of vocation. Work with students who have often been overlooked has taught me that value frequently exists beyond visible metrics. The desert reminds me that growth is not always rapid, and recognition is not always immediate, yet neither absence negates significance.

As my friend so wisely reminded me, the prophet Jeremiah wrote to a people living in exile, instructing them not merely to endure displacement but to live within it: to build houses, plant gardens, and seek the peace of the place where they found themselves. The familiar promise—“For surely I know the plans I have for you… plans for welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope” (Jeremiah 29:11, NRSV)—was given not as an escape from difficulty, but as encouragement within it. The exiles were not told to wait passively for rescue, but to participate meaningfully in the life before them.

Perhaps this is the image I need to carry forward. The cactus does not remove its spines when rain arrives. It simply continues to grow. Its defenses remain part of its structure, but they do not prevent it from reaching upward, from storing life, from offering shelter, from blooming when conditions allow.

The guardians of the open silence are not symbols of isolation, but of continuity. They remind me that adaptation is not the end of the story. Even in landscapes shaped by scarcity, life continues to reach toward light. Even in seasons of uncertainty, it is still possible to plant, to build, to seek peace, and to trust that growth—slow, patient, often unseen—remains possible.

The desert does not promise ease, but it does offer hope wide enough to inhabit.

The Mark (Left Behind #8)

Minnesota Twins at Kansas City Royals (Opening Day)

Patrick in the house!

Tiramisu Helmet

Sugar Free Black Cherry Coke

The First Dirty Soda sold at The K.

Hawaiian Bros Island Grill at The K

Opening Day at Kauffman Stadium

Hong Kong Inn

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

The Fabulous Fox

St. Francis Xavier College Church

Liturgy of the Hours for March 28th, 2026

Evening Prayer I for Passion Sunday in the Holy Week

God, come to my assistance.

— Lord, make haste to help me.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:

— as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.

HYMN

God of mercy God of grace

Hear our sad, repentant songs.

O restore Thy suppliant race,

Thou to whom our praise belongs!

Deep regret for follies past,

Talents wasted, time misspent;

Hearts debased by worldly cares,

Thankless for the blessings lent:

Foolish fears and fond desires,

Vain regrets for things as vain:

Lips too seldom taught to praise,

Oft to murmur and complain;

These, and every secret fault,

Filled with grief and shame, we own.

Humbled at Thy feet we lie,

Seeking pardon from Thy throne.

𝄞 "God of Mercy God of Grace" by Rebecca Hincke • Available for Purchase • Musical Score • Title: God of Mercy God of Grace; Text: John Taylor; Artist: Rebecca Hincke; (c) 2017 Surgeworks, Inc. • Albums that contain this Hymn: Hymns and Chants of Divine Office, Vol. 4

PSALMODY

Ant. 1 Day after day I sat teaching you in the temple and you did not lay hands on me. Now you come to scourge me and lead me to the cross.

Psalm 119:105-112

XIV (Nun)

A meditation on God’s law

This is my commandment: that you should love one another (John 15:12).

Your word is a lamp for my steps

and a light for my path.

I have sworn and have made up my mind

to obey your decrees.

Lord, I am deeply afflicted;

by your word give me life.

Accept, Lord, the homage of my lips

and teach me your decrees.

Though I carry my life in my hands,

I remember your law.

Though the wicked try to ensnare me,

I do not stray from your precepts.

Your will is my heritage for ever,

the joy of my heart.

I set myself to carry out your will

in fullness, for ever.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:

— as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.

Psalm-prayer

Let your Word, Father, be a lamp for our feet and a light to our path, so that we may understand what you wish to teach us and follow the path your light marks out for us.

Ant. Day after day I sat teaching you in the temple and you did not lay hands on me. Now you come to scourge me and lead me to the cross.

Ant. 2 The Lord God is my help; no shame can harm me.

Psalm 16

The Lord himself is my heritage

The Father raised up Jesus, freeing him from the grip of death (Acts 2:24).

Preserve me, God, I take refuge in you.

I say to the Lord: “You are my God.

My happiness lies in you alone.”

He has put into my heart a marvelous love

for the faithful ones who dwell in his land.

Those who choose other gods increase their sorrows.

Never will I offer their offerings of blood.

Never will I take their name upon my lips.

O Lord, it is you who are my portion and cup;

it is you yourself who are my prize.

The lot marked out for me is my delight:

welcome indeed the heritage that falls to me!

I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel,

who even at night directs my heart.

I keep the Lord ever in my sight:

since he is at my right hand, I shall stand firm.

And so my heart rejoices, my soul is glad;

even my body shall rest in safety.

For you will not leave my soul among the dead,

nor let your beloved know decay.

You will show me the path of life,

the fullness of joy in your presence,

at your right hand happiness for ever.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:

— as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.

Psalm-prayer

Lord Jesus, uphold those who hope in you and give us your counsel, so that we may know the joy of your resurrection and deserve to be among the saints at your right hand.

Ant. The Lord God is my help; no shame can harm me.

Ant. 3 The Lord Jesus humbled himself by showing obedience even when this meant death, death on the cross.

Canticle – Philippians 2:6-11

Christ, God’s holy servant

Though he was in the form of God,

Jesus did not deem equality with God

something to be grasped at.

Rather, he emptied himself

and took the form of a slave,

being born in the likeness of men.

He was known to be of human estate,

and it was thus that he humbled himself,

obediently accepting even death,

death on a cross!

Because of this,

God highly exalted him

and bestowed on him the name

above every other name,

So that at Jesus’ name

every knee must bend

in the heavens, on the earth,

and under the earth,

and every tongue proclaim

to the glory of God the Father:

JESUS CHRIST IS LORD!

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:

— as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.

Ant. The Lord Jesus humbled himself by showing obedience even when this meant death, death on the cross.

READING 1 Peter 1:18-21

Realize that you were delivered from the futile way of life your fathers handed on to you, not by any diminishable sum of silver or gold, but by Christ’s blood beyond all price: the blood of a spotless, unblemished lamb chosen before the world’s foundation and revealed for your sake in these last days. It is through him that you are believers in God, the God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory. Your faith and hope, then, are centered in God.

Sacred Silence (indicated by a bell) – a moment to reflect and receive in our hearts the full resonance of the voice of the Holy Spirit and to unite our personal prayer more closely with the word of God and public voice of the Church.

RESPONSORY

We worship you, O Christ, and we praise you.

— We worship you, O Christ, and we praise you.

Because by your cross you have redeemed the world.

— We praise you.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:

— We worship you, O Christ, and we praise you.

CANTICLE OF MARY

Ant. Praise to our King, the Son of David, the Redeemer of the world; praise to the Savior whose coming had been foretold by the prophets.

Luke 1:46-55

The soul rejoices in the Lord

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,

my spirit rejoices in God my Savior

for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed:

the Almighty has done great things for me,

and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him

in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm,

he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,

and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things,

and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel

for he has remembered his promise of mercy,

the promise he made to our fathers,

to Abraham and his children for ever.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son,

and to the Holy Spirit:

as it was in the beginning, is now,

and will be for ever. Amen.

Ant. Praise to our King, the Son of David, the Redeemer of the world; praise to the Savior whose coming had been foretold by the prophets.

INTERCESSIONS

Before his passion, Christ looked out over Jerusalem and wept for it, because it had not recognized the hour of God’s visitation. With sorrow for our sins, let us adore him, and say:

Lord, have mercy on your people.

You longed to gather to yourself the people of Jerusalem, as the hen gathers her young,

— teach all peoples to recognize the hour of your visitation.

Lord, have mercy on your people.

Do not forsake those who have forsaken you,

— turn our hearts to you, and we will return to you, our God.

Lord, have mercy on your people.

Through your passion you gave grace to the world,

— help us to live always by your Spirit, given to us in baptism.

Lord, have mercy on your people.

By your passion, help us to deny ourselves,

— and so prepare to celebrate your resurrection.

Lord, have mercy on your people.

You reign in the glory of the Father,

— remember those who have died today.

Lord, have mercy on your people.

Our Father who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done on earth,

as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

and forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us,

and lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

Concluding Prayer

Almighty ever-living God,

who as an example of humility

for the human race to follow,

caused our savior to take flesh

and submit to the Cross,

graciously grant that

we may heed his lesson of patient suffering

and so merit a share in his Resurrection.

Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God, for ever and ever.

— Amen.

DISMISSAL

May the Lord bless us,

protect us from all evil and bring us to everlasting life.

— Amen.

The Old Spaghetti Factory

Tampa Bay Rays at St. Louis Cardinals

St. Louis Battlehawks

I did not fully understand the depth of St. Louis’ relationship with football until I began hearing the word betrayal spoken not as metaphor, but as memory. The departure of the Rams in 2016 was not simply a business decision that affected a city’s entertainment options. For many, it felt personal. Sundays had structured autumn for a generation. Families wore the same jerseys year after year. The Dome had once shaken with noise that suggested a shared belief in something larger than the scoreboard. When the team left, the silence that followed was not merely the absence of football. It was the absence of trust.

Betrayal carries a peculiar quality. It lingers longer than disappointment because it calls into question the assumptions that allowed the relationship to exist in the first place. The city had built a stadium to attract the NFL. Taxpayers had financed the promise. Fans had shown up, even when the team struggled. The Greatest Show on Turf had not only won games; it had made St. Louis feel visible. To see the franchise return to Los Angeles, citing financial opportunity and facility limitations, confirmed a suspicion many Midwestern cities quietly hold: loyalty is often expected from communities but rarely reciprocated by ownership.

For several years, professional football in St. Louis existed only in memory and conversation. The Dome remained, an architectural reminder of both triumph and loss. It is an unusual experience for a building to outlive the story it was constructed to tell. Yet the structure waited, as if uncertain whether its narrative had truly ended.

Then, in 2020, something unexpected appeared. The Battlehawks arrived as part of the revived XFL, not with the prestige of the NFL but with something more fragile and perhaps more powerful: an opportunity for renewal. There was skepticism at first. Spring football leagues have historically lived brief lives. The assumption was that interest would be limited, that fans would not invest emotionally in a league perceived as secondary.

St. Louis responded differently.

Attendance surged almost immediately, surpassing expectations and rivaling established professional markets. The rallying cry “Kaw is the Law” emerged not from marketing consultants but from supporters themselves, a reminder that authentic culture is rarely designed from the top down. The phrase carried humor, but also defiance. If the NFL would not remain, St. Louis would create meaning elsewhere.

What makes the Battlehawks story compelling is not simply that football returned, but that the return felt communal rather than transactional. Fans did not need the league to validate their loyalty. The Dome, once considered outdated by NFL standards, suddenly became an advantage. Its size allowed large crowds to gather, its location remained accessible, and its history provided continuity. The same building that had witnessed departure now hosted restoration.

Restoration does not erase betrayal. The memory remains present, shaping how the new relationship is understood. Many in St. Louis continue to follow the NFL with ambivalence, their allegiances complicated by the knowledge that franchises are mobile in ways communities are not. Yet the Battlehawks demonstrate that identity in sport ultimately resides in the people who attend, who cheer, who choose to invest meaning in a shared ritual.

There is something almost literary about the trajectory. A city builds a cathedral for football, fills it with glory, experiences abandonment, and then returns. Returns not to reclaim what was lost, but to rediscover why the gathering mattered in the first place. The Battlehawks have not replaced the Rams in prestige, but they have restored something arguably more enduring: the sense that the game belongs to the community rather than the other way around.

Perhaps that is why the crowds feel different now. The enthusiasm carries an undercurrent of self-awareness, as if fans recognize both the fragility and resilience of the tradition they are sustaining. The Battlehawks are not simply a team. They are evidence that civic identity does not disappear when a franchise leaves. It waits, sometimes quietly, until it finds a new expression.

Betrayal altered the story of football in St. Louis. Restoration continues to write its next chapter. And on certain spring afternoons, when the Dome fills again with sound, it becomes possible to imagine that the most important victories are not recorded in standings, but in the decision to show up once more.

DC Defenders at St. Louis Battlehawks

The Dome at America's Center

I remember the first time I saw the Dome rising from the northern edge of downtown, its pale curve suggesting both ambition and anxiety. It looked less like a stadium and more like a promise—a promise that St. Louis would again matter on the national stage. The city had lost the Cardinals in 1988 when they departed for Arizona, leaving behind a peculiar civic silence each autumn Sunday. For a region that had long defined itself through baseball and river trade, the absence of professional football felt like a missing chapter in a story still being written.

In response, St. Louis did something bold and, depending on one’s perspective, reckless. Civic leaders and taxpayers financed the construction of a new domed stadium, originally known as the Trans World Dome, with the explicit goal of attracting an NFL franchise. Completed in 1995, the structure represented the logic of its era: enclosed comfort, multi-purpose functionality, and the belief that modern facilities could anchor economic development. The Dome was not merely a venue. It was an argument—a physical declaration that St. Louis belonged among the major cities of American sport.

That same year, the argument appeared to succeed. The Rams relocated from Los Angeles, bringing with them both professional football and a sense of validation. The franchise quickly embedded itself in the city’s identity, though the early seasons were uneven. Then, in 1999, something extraordinary happened. A previously unheralded quarterback named Kurt Warner stepped into the starting role and led an offense that transformed the modern game. Alongside Marshall Faulk, Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, and a cast of remarkable skill players, the Rams created what became known as the Greatest Show on Turf. Precision passing replaced brute force. Speed and spacing became strategic principles rather than luxuries. Football, in St. Louis, briefly resembled choreography.

The 1999 season culminated in a Super Bowl victory defined by its final seconds. With the Tennessee Titans threatening to tie the game, linebacker Mike Jones tackled Kevin Dyson one yard short of the goal line as time expired. It was a moment of geometry as much as athleticism, the difference between victory and defeat measured in inches. For St. Louis, the image of Dyson stretching toward the end zone became part of civic mythology, a reminder that history sometimes hinges on the smallest margins.

For a time, the Dome felt like the center of the football universe. Noise echoed beneath the roof, amplified into something almost cathedral-like. Yet even as banners were raised, the economics of professional sports were shifting. New stadiums began to prioritize open air aesthetics, expansive luxury seating, and entertainment districts designed to maximize revenue beyond the game itself. The Dome, once modern, increasingly appeared dated.

The lease agreement between the Rams and the city included a clause requiring the stadium to remain within the top tier of NFL facilities. When the venue no longer met that standard, tensions emerged between ownership and public officials. Negotiations over renovations became entangled with broader questions about public investment and private profit. The relationship gradually deteriorated, and by the early 2010s, speculation about relocation had become a persistent undertone.

In 2016, the Rams returned to Los Angeles, leaving the Dome without its primary tenant and St. Louis without the NFL for a second time. The departure carried a familiar sting, but it also prompted a reconsideration of what professional sports mean to a city. Lawsuits followed, culminating in a substantial settlement that acknowledged the complexity of franchise mobility in an era where teams often function as both cultural institutions and corporate assets.

Today, the Dome remains standing, its curved roof still visible above the skyline. It hosts conventions, college games, concerts, and new football experiments. Time has softened some of the earlier debates, though not entirely. The building serves as a reminder of a particular civic moment when St. Louis chose to believe that architecture could shape destiny.

Perhaps that belief was not entirely misplaced. For a brief period, the Dome contained one of the most exciting teams in football history. It held the echoes of a crowd that believed it was witnessing something transformative. The Rams years demonstrated that a city’s identity can be both strengthened and tested by the teams it embraces.

Stadiums, like cities, outlive the intentions that created them. They accumulate stories the way stone accumulates weather. The Dome stands now as both monument and question: what do communities gain when they build for belonging, and what remains when the game moves on?

Nolan Ryan, Diamond King #13 (1982)

As a child, the Diamond Kings series did not feel like ordinary baseball cards. They felt like icons. While most cards functioned as documentary objects, small photographic records of athletic performance, the Diamond Kings transformed players into subjects worthy of painterly attention. Through the work of Dick Perez, the athlete was no longer merely captured but interpreted. The card became not simply memorabilia but aesthetic encounter. Even before I possessed the vocabulary to articulate the distinction, I sensed that something meaningful was occurring in the translation from photograph to painting. The players appeared less transient, less bound to a particular game or season, and more representative of enduring qualities such as discipline, concentration, and resolve.

For a young collector, this distinction shaped the imagination in ways that extend beyond nostalgia. The Diamond Kings suggested that baseball existed not only as a sport but as a symbolic system. The stylization of figures such as Nolan Ryan elevated them beyond statistical production into archetypal presence. Ryan becomes more than a pitcher; he becomes a figure representing control amid uncertainty, mastery developed through repetition, and persistence sustained across time. The card does not merely depict excellence; it frames excellence as worthy of contemplation.

Walter Benjamin describes the concept of aura as the sense that an object possesses a unique presence exceeding its material form. Paradoxically, the mechanical reproduction of the baseball card did not diminish aura but relocated it. Because the image was mediated through artistic interpretation, the viewer sensed intentionality. The brushstroke implied perception. The portrait implied judgment. The player became not only observed but understood through the lens of another mind. In this sense, the card models interpretation as an act of attention.

The psychological significance of this process becomes clearer when considered through the lens of narrative identity. Jerome Bruner argues that individuals construct meaning through stories that organize experience into coherence. Baseball lends itself naturally to narrative form: seasons unfold episodically, statistics accumulate cumulatively, and careers develop arc. The child collector begins to internalize these structures. Players become characters. Teams become communities. The game becomes a temporal framework through which concepts such as patience, failure, and improvement are repeatedly encountered.

The Diamond Kings series intensifies this narrative dimension by slowing perception. A photograph captures an instant; a painting suggests duration. Perez’s portraits invite the viewer to linger on expression. The face of Ryan is calm, almost reflective, despite his reputation for overwhelming velocity. The small secondary figure of the pitcher in motion reinforces a dual identity: contemplation and action coexisting. Psychologically, this duality resonates with Donald Winnicott’s concept of transitional space, a zone between imagination and reality in which play becomes possible. The baseball card operates within such a space. It is both object and symbol, both collectible and imaginative prompt.

There is also a subtle experience of control embedded in collecting. Childhood often involves negotiating structures not of one’s own making. Structures such as school schedules, household rules, developmental expectations. The collection, however, becomes a domain of self-directed order. Cards can be sorted, protected, displayed, and categorized. Patterns emerge through intentional arrangement. Pierre Bourdieu might describe this as the early acquisition of cultural capital, but psychologically it also functions as a rehearsal of agency. Knowledge becomes something accumulated deliberately rather than passively received.

Baseball itself reinforces this psychological pattern through its statistical richness. Numbers in baseball are not merely descriptive; they are interpretive tools. Earned run average, batting average, on-base percentage; each offers a framework for understanding performance across time. The child learns to interpret probability intuitively. Failure becomes normalized. A hitter who succeeds three times out of ten is considered exceptional. This reframing of failure subtly challenges perfectionistic tendencies, offering an alternative model of competence grounded in persistence rather than flawlessness.

The pitcher-hitter confrontation, which first drew my attention to the psychological dimension of the sport, functions almost as a laboratory for uncertainty. Each pitch requires commitment without full information. Cognitive psychologists describe expertise as the development of pattern recognition enabling rapid decision-making under conditions of ambiguity. The pitcher must anticipate the hitter’s anticipation. The hitter must anticipate the pitcher’s anticipation. Recursive awareness emerges. The encounter becomes an elegant example of theory of mind in action.

Religion often provides symbolic structures that help individuals tolerate uncertainty. Mircea Eliade emphasizes the human desire to locate meaning within recurring forms. Baseball offers recurrence without repetition. Every game resembles the previous one, yet no game is identical. The ritual remains stable while outcomes remain open. This balance between predictability and contingency produces psychological comfort. The game reassures without guaranteeing.

The Diamond Kings cards crystallize this balance visually. They present figures who appear stable, almost timeless, yet whose identities were formed through dynamic performance. The aesthetic treatment encourages the viewer to perceive continuity across change. In adulthood, this continuity acquires additional resonance. The cards become artifacts not only of baseball history but of personal history. They preserve an earlier self encountering wonder.

Object relations theory suggests that certain objects retain emotional significance because they function as anchors of identity. The Diamond Kings series may function in precisely this way. The cards do not simply recall players; they recall a way of seeing. They recall the experience of discovering that attention can transform ordinary objects into sources of meaning.

If baseball operates as a kind of religion, it does so not by demanding belief but by cultivating orientation. It trains perception toward patience, humility, and attentiveness to incremental progress. The psychological appeal lies partly in the recognition that mastery emerges slowly, often invisibly, through repetition. The child collector learns that value may reside in accumulation rather than immediacy.

The enduring power of the Diamond Kings lies in their capacity to hold together aesthetics and aspiration. They suggest that excellence is both beautiful and difficult, both visible and hidden. They encourage a way of seeing in which performance becomes symbol and symbol becomes invitation.

What first captured the imagination as a child continues to shape interpretation in adulthood. The cards remind me that meaning often begins in fascination. To look carefully is already to care. To care persistently is already to believe.

Warrensburg Tigers at Carthage Tigers

A Feeling Right Before the Feeling

A Feeling Right Before the Feeling

    By Brenda Hillman

At sunrise the deer eat
pieces of the quiet, they eat spaces
between the quiet
    & the sounds—;
         & the numbers on the calendar
lie flat in their boxes,
      they leak through tiny holes
             in the minutes,
            evenly so, so evenly,
 an active sense, before
         the sense was made…
 
There, now, opposite to set down,
            the agreed-upon, the shape
                 of the obvious
        drawn by an earlier
           enchantment before the new
                        anxiety set in:
         the workers are safe;
 the terror stilled for an hour;
a lover’s outline, dreamed or imagined,
       before you read the one-page book
     again, what was that book,
 it had no copyright—
 
& what was before?
         a life, the dazzler, the dark,
             the singing dust, it turned
when you turned, it orpheus-knew
what you forgot when you took the bowl
        of burning time across the room—
      & if the previous is closer
   to you now, should you
look, doesn’t matter if you do,
    you carry the some of it
with it, out into it—
 
                                                for LG

Predator at the Chessboard: A Field Guide to Chess Tactics, Book II: The Pin and the Skewer; Removing the Guard; Mating Patterns

 

Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric

 

The Indwelling (Left Behind #7)

Bubly: Tiki Sunrise

10/10 flavor. Well balanced and delicious. 

Webbing

 

Pocket Spoon

Pocket Spoon

By Dave

I carry little that is not a question.

A notebook. A pen. A road not yet decided.

And now, this small spoon, shaped by a friend’s patient hand,

curved like the margin of a page

waiting to be filled.

It rests beside my journal

as if it, too, were keeping record—

of roadside coffee, of campfire stew,

of the quiet sacrament of ordinary days

that pass unannounced yet refuse to be forgotten.

A traveler learns quickly

that usefulness is a form of grace.

What we carry shapes what we notice.

A spoon teaches attention:

to warmth held briefly,

to hunger answered simply,

to the humility of enough.

Wood remembers the tree,

and the hand remembers the friend.

Between them, I move—

crossing distances that can be measured

only in shared meals and written lines.

So I keep this small companion near,

not as ornament but as promise:

that wherever I go,

friendship will arrive before me,

already waiting at the table.

A School for Boys and Girls (1670)

Introduction: Seeing Clearly in an Age of Measurement

Jan Steen’s A School for Boys and Girls (1670) offers neither an idealized vision of education nor a condemnation of its difficulties. Instead, the painting presents a classroom animated by the full range of human behavior: attention and distraction, discipline and resistance, order and improvisation. The proverb often associated with the image, What use are glasses or light if the owl does not want to see?, invites reflection on the limits of instruments designed to clarify understanding. Improved tools do not guarantee improved perception. Illumination does not compel insight.

I began teaching in 2007, the same year Missouri implemented the End of Course assessment program. Because of this historical coincidence, my professional life has unfolded within an educational environment shaped by the pursuit of clarity through measurement. Standardized testing, data dashboards, data walls, and accountability systems have formed part of the structural context in which my understanding of teaching has developed. Over time, I have come to recognize both the value and the limits of these instruments. Numbers offer visibility into certain aspects of learning, yet the deeper processes through which individuals construct meaning often resist full quantification.

Steen’s classroom provides a visual metaphor through which to consider the contemporary educational landscape. Each figure, object, and gesture reveals a dimension of learning that complicates simplistic interpretations of success or failure. The painting reminds us that education has always involved negotiation between structure and agency, between institutional expectation and human development. The present moment does not represent a departure from this tension but its continuation under new conditions shaped by technological change and expanded accountability.

The reflections that follow consider what standardized measurement reveals and what it necessarily obscures. Drawing upon constructivist philosophy, qualitative research traditions, and the work of scholars such as Alfie Kohn, John Dewey, and Gert Biesta, the essay explores the relationship between visibility and understanding within educational systems. Steen’s classroom serves as a visual companion throughout, reminding us that learning has always unfolded within imperfect environments populated by individuals striving to see clearly.

The question is not whether measurement has value but how measurement relates to the broader aims of education. If spectacles sharpen vision, wisdom determines what is worth seeing.

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Opening Cactus Bud (1990)

On the flight home from Phoenix, I found myself returning to a line spoken half in jest with my brother, “another desert-loving Englishman,” a nod to Lawrence of Arabia. The remark was playful, yet it captured something real about the experience of the week. Spring Training offered its rituals of baseball, but beneath that familiar rhythm I felt drawn repeatedly toward the quieter revelation of the museum. The desert, which at first glance appears austere, revealed itself as a landscape of hidden beauty, one that does not immediately disclose its richness but instead invites a slower, more attentive form of seeing.

In Opening Cactus Bud, Mell offers a vision of the desert that resists the common caricature of emptiness. The bloom emerges not as ornament but as culmination. The cactus does not waste energy on constant display; its beauty is episodic, conditioned by patience and adaptation. Mell’s angular planes of color transform the organic form into something simultaneously natural and architectural. Light does not merely fall upon the bud, it structures the very possibility of its perception. The flower becomes less a botanical specimen than a philosophical proposition: that what appears barren may in fact conceal extraordinary vitality.

The desert teaches a particular epistemology. One must learn how to see it. Unlike environments that overwhelm the senses with immediate abundance, the Sonoran landscape requires attunement. The eye must adjust to subtle gradations of color, delicate shifts of shadow, and the quiet persistence of life negotiating scarcity. Mell’s composition functions almost as visual pedagogy, enlarging the cactus bud until it becomes undeniable. In doing so, he reveals what was always already present but insufficiently noticed.

This notion of hidden beauty resonates psychologically. Much of human development occurs in forms that are not publicly visible. Growth frequently unfolds in conditions that feel dry, uncertain, or unproductive. Yet the cactus reminds us that dormancy is not equivalent to stagnation. Within a framework informed by depth psychology, the unopened bud may be read as a symbol of latent integration, a gathering of psychic resources awaiting expression. The bloom appears suddenly, but its possibility has been cultivated over time.

The desert has long served as a site of spiritual testing and revelation. From the ascetic traditions of late antiquity to the literary imagination of modernity, arid landscapes have functioned as metaphors for interior encounter. In Lawrence of Arabia, the desert becomes a place where identity is both lost and discovered. T. E. Lawrence does not simply traverse the desert; he is transformed by it. The environment strips away distraction, revealing both fragility and resolve. Mell’s cactus bud participates in this symbolic lineage. Its bloom is not exuberant excess but distilled intensity.

Mell’s approach echoes the reductive clarity found in the work of Georgia O’Keeffe, yet Mell’s vision is more angular, more crystalline. The desert is not softened but faceted, its geometry reflecting the structural forces that shape both landscape and perception. The bloom is monumentalized, inviting contemplation not merely of botanical beauty but of emergence itself.

I am struck by how easily hidden beauty escapes attention when one expects spectacle. Spring Training offers spectacle in abundance. It's baseball packed with all the asymmetry of the field, the anticipation of the season, the shared language of tradition. Yet the museum offers something quieter, perhaps more enduring: the opportunity to recognize value where none initially appears obvious. Mell’s cactus bud reminds me that beauty is not always performative. Sometimes it waits, conserved and protected, until conditions allow for its expression.

The line about being “another desert-loving Englishman” becomes less a joke and more a recognition of temperament. To love the desert is to accept that meaning is often understated. It is to understand that revelation frequently occurs through restraint rather than excess. The desert does not compel attention; it rewards it.

Hidden beauty requires participation. It asks the viewer to slow perception, to resist the demand for immediate gratification, and to trust that significance may reside beneath surfaces that appear severe. Mell’s painting suggests that what initially seems inhospitable may in fact contain the conditions necessary for transformation.

The bloom opens rarely, but when it does, it reveals that the desert was never empty. It was simply waiting to be seen.

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