A more personal curriculum vitae
Some prominent stepping-stones in my “path of life” (with links to books, of course)
(Disclaimer: Not only is this not comprehensive, it doesn’t even pretend to be a proper biographical narrative!)
I grew up in Vermont, in what a long time ago was called St. Andrew’s Gore. It is the home of world-famous Goddard College, and I remember playing the gamelon with my neighbor Dennis Murphy. For a flavor of the the area and culture during this time, I can recommend John Dranow’s novella, Zone One.
From my earliest memories I was surrounded by natural and crafted beauty. Situated in the woods along Checkerberry Brook, the post-and-beam house I grew up in — built in the early 1970’s and modeled on the Parson Capen house, a paradigm for a classic New England colonial style — was the first house designed and built by Richard Lear and is featured in the first edition of Michael Litchfield’s Renovation (1982).
In that setting, my childhood was full of activity, including exploring the woods and hills around my house, cross-country skiing, arts and theater, puzzles and violin. In adolescence, I ventured into downhill skiing and journalism. I got my varsity letter in high school drama, but my primary activity was horseback riding — including dressage, the most Aristotelian of the equestrian arts, which traces its history to Xenophon. I remember riding clinics with Dr. H.L.M. Van Schaik. The ethos of the stable where I rode is beautifully captured in the riding memoir Conversations with a Prince.
Summer jobs, in addition to mucking stalls and throwing haybales, included landscaping, painting, working at an architectural design firm, and building a database for a newsletter of local politics. (I am still looking for copies of the short-lived Vermont Newsletter which had the ill fate of just preceding the World Wide Web.)
In college I fell in love with the study of ideas; I majored in philosophy mainly as a means of learning intellectual history, as the philosophy department counted courses in politics, history, and religious studies. I also continued with journalism and essay-writing, and new venues for the exercise of persuasion in the service of truth. Ultimate questions were pressed by serendipitous courses with some brilliant teachers, as well as by friendships and personal experiences—which is probably why I resonated so much with this campus novel.
Throughout my life I have been blessed to inhabit beautiful spaces which nurture friendship and nourish the soul. God’s grace has been especially present in the setting and community where I have raised a family, a short walk from Emmitsburg’s Shrine of the Grotto of Lourdes, in the lovely Catoctin mountains.
So many of my early experiences involved creativity rooted in piety toward tradition, and communication embodied in physical discipline. They were especially practices that require the patient acquisition of habits coordinating head and heart — which have shaped me as a philosopher and teacher, and also as a husband, father, and friend. I’m grateful, too, to have found ways to continue many activities learned in youth, including skiing with my children at the local ski hill, and in recent years even getting back on dressage horses and picking up a paintbrush to “write” my first icon.