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Conference: Day 1

I made it to my conference. I’m in a different hotel from the main conference one for the first night (long story), but I’ll be where I’m supposed to be for the rest of the time.

The ride down was actually more pleasant than I expected. My coworker, who usually goes silent behind her laptop whenever she’s not driving, talked the whole way this time. It made the trip go by a lot faster.

The conference starts today, and there are a few sessions I’m genuinely looking forward to. To be honest, most will probably be pretty boring, but that’s usually how these things go. This will be a short post because I need to jump in the shower and head down for breakfast. The coffee in the room was terrible, so I’m hoping the coffee downstairs will redeem the morning.

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November

November

By Edward Thomas

November’s days are thirty:

November’s earth is dirty,

Those thirty days, from first to last;

And the prettiest thing on ground are the paths

With morning and evening hobnails dinted,

With foot and wing-tip overprinted

Or separately charactered,

Of little beast and little bird.

The fields are mashed by sheep, the roads

Make the worst going, the best the woods

Where dead leaves upward and downward scatter.

Few care for the mixture of earth and water,

Twig, leaf, flint, thorn,

Straw, feather, all that men scorn,

Pounded up and sodden by flood,

Condemned as mud.

But of all the months when earth is greener

Not one has clean skies that are cleaner.

Clean and clear and sweet and cold,

They shine above the earth so old,

While the after-tempest cloud

Sails over in silence though winds are loud,

Till the full moon in the east

Looks at the planet in the west

And earth is silent as it is black,

Yet not unhappy for its lack.

Up from the dirty earth men stare:

One imagines a refuge there

Above the mud, in the pure bright

Of the cloudless heavenly light:

Another loves earth and November more dearly

Because without them, he sees clearly,

The sky would be nothing more to his eye

Than he, in any case, is to the sky;

He loves even the mud whose dyes

Renounce all brightness to the skies.

About the Poem 

Edward Thomas’s “November” opens with blunt realism—mud, muck, and the mess of late autumn—but soon unfolds into a meditation on beauty, humility, and the interdependence between earth and sky. The poem’s first half dwells in the physical world: sheep-trampled fields, sodden leaves, the “mixture of earth and water” that most people scorn. Thomas does not romanticize this landscape; he names it for what it is—mud—yet finds in it a strange, quiet loveliness. Even the paths “hobnails dinted” with the marks of animals and people suggest the persistence of life and movement through bleakness.

In the second half, Thomas turns his gaze upward to the brilliant clarity of the November sky. After the storms have passed, the heavens appear “clean and clear and sweet and cold,” a mirror opposite to the sullied ground below. Yet he refuses to separate them. The poem ends by contrasting two ways of seeing: one who yearns for escape into the “pure bright” refuge of the sky, and another who loves the earth all the more for its imperfections. For Thomas, the latter vision is truer. Without the mud, there would be no sky—no brightness to contrast its purity. The poem thus becomes a subtle argument for groundedness, for finding grace not in transcendence but in the honest, dirty beauty of the world beneath our feet.

In “November,” Thomas achieves a spiritual balance between realism and reverence. His speaker does not seek heaven apart from earth but sees both as part of one continuous whole—each giving meaning to the other. The mud’s dull tones make the sky’s brilliance possible, just as human imperfection gives shape to our longing for clarity.

About the Poet

Edward Thomas (1878–1917) was a British poet, essayist, and nature writer whose work bridges the late Victorian and early modernist periods. Born in London to Welsh parents, he was a close observer of the English countryside, capturing its subtle moods with honesty and restraint.

Thomas’s poetry often reflects a tension between melancholy and wonder, combining the simplicity of rural life with the philosophical depth of modern thought. Encouraged by his friend Robert Frost to write verse, Thomas began publishing poetry only a few years before his death. His brief but remarkable career produced enduring works such as “Adlestrop,” “Rain,” and “November.”

In 1915, despite being nearly forty and deeply introspective by nature, Thomas enlisted in the British Army during World War I. He was killed in action in 1917 at the Battle of Arras. His poems, written in those last few years, remain some of the most quietly profound meditations on nature, time, and the human spirit in twentieth-century English poetry.

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On the Road Again

I’m afraid this week is going to feel like a long one. I’ll only be in the office for about a day and a half before heading out to a conference for the rest of the week. I’m not exactly thrilled about the trip over and back—not because of the destination, but because of the person I’ll be riding with. Let’s just say that “pleasant conversation” isn’t her strong suit. I’m planning to bring my Kindle and use my hearing aids as earbuds so I can listen to a book while pretending to read. (I can’t actually read in the car—it gives me a headache and makes me carsick.) Usually, I like to talk on long drives, but since my travel companion rarely says more than a few words to me even on a good day, I don’t think that’ll be happening.

I usually do the driving on these trips, but she decided she wanted to drive this time. I think she thought she was being difficult—you should’ve seen her face when I thanked her for volunteering. With this pinched nerve in my back, long drives can be painful, so I was genuinely grateful to hand over the keys.

Once the conference starts, I’m sure things will be fine. At least I’ll be out of town for a few days. Other than my trip to Alabama last Christmas, I haven’t gone anywhere overnight since the last time I attended this same conference a year ago. Honestly, I need a real vacation—not a work trip, not a family visit—but I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

The bright side is that I’ll get to see a few friends I rarely get to catch up with, and maybe I can do a little networking while I’m there. Like I said yesterday, you never know when a small act of kindness or a good conversation might open doors down the line. Here’s hoping the week goes smoothly, the conference is worthwhile, and the car ride passes quickly.

Wishing everyone a good week ahead!

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Roaring Lions and Silent Faith

Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering.

—1 Peter 5:8–9

Across the world today, the roar of the lion grows louder. We hear it in angry speeches, in cruel legislation, and in the deliberate turning away from compassion. In many nations, political movements have wrapped themselves in the language of faith, but have abandoned the teachings of Christ. They claim to defend “Christian values,” yet their actions betray them—stripping away healthcare, rejecting immigrants, targeting transgender people, and punishing the poor.

The recent government shutdown in the United States is just one example. Those responsible profess to follow Christ, yet their decisions starve children and deprive families of basic needs. They wield faith as a weapon while ignoring Jesus’s words in Matthew 25:40–45: “Just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” The true test of faith is not in the power we hold, but in the mercy we show.

Peter’s warning calls us to be watchful—not only for spiritual temptation but for moral corruption disguised as righteousness. The lion prowling in our world today takes many forms: greed, indifference, cruelty, and arrogance. These are the forces that devour empathy and seek to silence compassion. Isaiah spoke against such hypocrisy when he declared, “For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples” (Isaiah 56:7).

In the face of all this, we are reminded of a simple but profound story—Aesop’s fable of The Lion and the Mouse. In it, a mighty lion spares a tiny mouse, and later, when the lion is trapped in a hunter’s net, the mouse returns to gnaw through the ropes and set him free. Strength and power meant nothing without mercy, and the smallest act of kindness became the source of salvation. The story endures because it teaches a truth we so often forget: compassion is never weakness. Mercy, not might, is what ultimately redeems us.

Christ showed us that same truth. He healed the sick without judgment, fed the hungry without question, and embraced those whom society cast aside. True Christianity does not roar; it listens. It does not dominate; it serves. It remembers that every person—rich or poor, gay or straight, cisgender or transgender—is a beloved creation of God.

We must therefore remain vigilant—not against one another, but against the false prophets who twist the Gospel to justify harm. The adversary still prowls, but we resist by standing firm in faith, by loving as Christ loved, and by living with humility and courage. We resist through kindness, justice, and inclusion. The lion may roar, but it is the quiet courage of the mouse—the compassion of Christ within us—that sets the world free.

So let us stay alert and steadfast, answering every roar of hatred with an act of love. Let our faith be steady, our mercy unshaken, and our hearts open to all whom God calls beloved. For in every gentle deed, every word of kindness, and every act of justice, we proclaim that Christ’s love is stronger than fear—and that no roaring lion can ever silence it.

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Moment of Zen: Cooking