Monday, June 21, 2021
Welcome to the fifth day of summer, and the fourth quarterly issue of This Mortal Portal. An essay on lessons learned in making friends in 2021 Vic's Picks For the Record Plus a cartoon and the strangest slapstick GIF I've ever seen. -V Never Start A Funeral With LogisticsAnd Other Lessons Learned In Making Friends in 2021 “The universe is made of stories, not atoms.” - Muriel Ruckeyser
Tuesday, March 23, 2021
Adventures in becoming a non-anxious presence. Welcome to the fourth day of spring, and the third quarterly issue of This Mortal Portal. It's best read out of doors. -V Don't Just Do Something, Stand There!Adventures in becoming a non-anxious presence“Dad.” My 3 year old was annoyed, and I was not responding. “Daddy!” My thumbs typed faster as I tried to finish the email. Just one more sentence. “Daaaaaaad!” Too late.
Wednesday, December 23, 2020
On bonfires and desires. Issue #2 // Winter 2020 Welcome to the third day of winter, and the second quarterly issue of This Mortal Portal. As you read this, Jupiter and Saturn are closer than they've been in 800 years. Christmas and 2021 are around the corner. Jump right in with me, will you? Oh, and the title of my micro-essay (or mosaic of fragments) is also the refrain of a new song by the Avett Brothers.
Tuesday, September 22, 2020
Pickin' Fights With Mennonites - On what I learned from my great grandpa’s 1901 journal. Here we are at the first day of autumn 2020, and the first quarterly issue of This Mortal Portal. This issue has 3 parts: Pickin' Fights With Mennonites - On what I learned from my great grandpa’s 1901 journal Vic's Picks - Slices of what I'm enjoying, in music, books, food, place, and more
Saturday, March 30, 2019
Update: a black-and-white version of my diagram appears as an appendix in the scholarly historical tome Reformed and Evangelical Across Four Centuries. If you've found your way to this blog post, you might dig the book. A few years back, I was in seminary and pursuing ordination in the PCA. American Presbyterianism has a fractured history, and I wanted to get it sorted out in my head. I started mapping them out in a notebook… and eventually I decided to turn my scribbles into an infographic.
Friday, September 23, 2016
Have you read The Drowned Vault by ND Wilson? There’s an intriguing Latin family motto hidden in there: sic semper draconis. It’s a play on the Latin phrase sic semper tyrannis, which has a strange and storied history. Update on 16 July 2021: NDW explained his thinking behind the motto on his podcast: “Thus Always to Tyrants”Sic semper tyrannis was the cry attributed to Brutus at his assassination of Julius Caesar, and in 1776 it was adopted as the official seal of the Commonwealth of Virginia after they declared independence from Great Britain.
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
It's been a few years in the making.Here's an abridged timeline. (For more detail, at least from July 2015 - May 2016, you can read all of our Kickstarter updates.) August 2014While vacationing with our extended family, we (Vic and Joanna) search in vain for a Chincoteague coloring book for our girls. Vic says to Joanna, "Why don't you make one?" January 2015In the dead of winter in Baltimore, we begin to talk about what it would actually take to self-publish a Chincoteague coloring book.