Author: Lancelot Schaubert
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The Year of the Locust
Often folks ask why folks call Southern Illinois “Little Egypt” and you have to tell them it all started with the year of the locust. It’s not entirely true, of course, but locusts carry forth the sort of poetic resonance the rest of the story holds. In 1799, this old Baptist minister named — you’ll never…
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worst of all
The worst of all passes me byLike an actor memorizingA long-forgotten role I go backLearning my entire life by heartAs to not embarrass myself when I introduceMyself to me The worst of all passesme byAs if it were aiming for someoneElse.It will noticeIts mistake.And come back Translated from Hebrew by Natalie Feinstein
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Underdog Author VS. Amazon
Perhaps Amazon should have thought twice before trying to bully this particular underdog author considering how my debut BELL HAMMERS features my grandpas taking on multiple mega corporations. They used large scale pranks and practical jokes. Perhaps Amazon should have read how Bloody Williamson responded to the Southern Illinois Coal Company’s attempt to break the…
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Did Amazon cancel your pre-order of BELL HAMMERS? Here’s what happened…
Did your pre-order of BELL HAMMERS on Amazon get cancelled? Here’s what happened: Back in January, Amazon committed to handling pre-orders and fulfillment for the October 12, 2020 release of BELL HAMMERS. Many of you pre-ordered from them both in January and now. BELL HAMMERS sold out twice. After learning from many of you that…
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What do we mean by moral law?
A few have asked in recent days what we mean when we say “moral law” or “virtue” or “moral philosophy” in the liberal arts. It seems, very often, that an oft repeated lie gets turned into the truth of the minds of those who have not studied broad enough or deep enough. A broad reading…
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5 Big Questions: Technology and Virtue
We’re starting 5 Big Questions because we had a really vibrant comment section years ago that has since switched to more personal interactions with you all via email. Though we cherish those interactions, we also wanted to encourage you all to dialog with one another as well in the comments. So we’re going to try…
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You Will Never Find Me This Way
Before we get to You Will Never Find Me This Way, We of the Showbear Family Circus write with a heavy heart to tell you that the author of these three poems, Jonathan Dowdle, passed from this life between acceptance and confirmation of terms. There was an 8-month delay. We learned 10 days ago that…
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To Stand on the Shoulders of Giants You Must Climb their Legs
The great Coleridge quote (by way of Newton by way of Burton by way of Bernard of Chartes) that we see further because we stand on the shoulders of giants seems to be automatically assumed by the modern mind. We have “evolved” since the Greco Roman era. Even though clearly we are more barbaric. Even…
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After the Tornado: a Primer on Disaster
I wish Tara and I had less experience in disasters, but the truth is we have more than several lifetimes worth. I was on a team that served in Galveston after the hurricane – Zach Williams led worship before he was in the Lone Bellow, in fact. I was on a team in Katrina. Tara…
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Why the Movie is Always Worse than the Book
There seems to have arisen a sort of arrogance in our culture that if you’ve seen the movie, you’ve seen it all — that the movie is seldom truly worse than the book. But seeing is not understanding, not knowing, not believing – at least not the sort of seeing we normally mean. TV and Movies…
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Saints of the Plagues
In the time of the coronavirus, people of virtue and morality — particularly Christians and post-Christians — search for meaning and a proper response: for the saints of the plagues to emerge. Tara and I often find that the best way forward is backwards. That is, to give the democracy of the dead a vote in how…
