Adam B. Shaeffer's Blog, page 2

The Broken Earth Trilogy

In her brilliant short story collection, How Long Til Black Future Month, N.K. Jemisin’s lead-off story “The Ones Who Stay and Fight” riffs on Ursula K. LeGuin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” to devastating effect. I’m not a crier under most circumstances, just ask my wife and she’ll confirm that. But at the end of Jemisin’s story, I cried because her vision for how life could be was so beautiful. LeGuin’s story essentially asks the question: “If a society’s thriving required the exploita...

Chiang, Julian, and the Story of Our Lives

​”Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough.” Ted Chiang closes The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate with these simple yet profound words, wrapping up a nested set of time travel tales in a radically different – and radically human – way.

​This lesson is at the core of emotional and spiritual health. For the characters, it was gained through heartache and regret, making it a message for all people, in all times...

Be Welcome Here

Time is a creature too

with energy and motion

of its own,

and though life in time

sometimes stutters,

it never

stands

still.

At times

calm

and slow,

sometimes it screams,

moving so fast it seems more than I can manage to

stop

and breathe,

to welcome you in

and give you space

in the time that is mine

only because it is given.

A gift.

Not a currency.

Not a thing

that can be bought or spent.

So, stuttering,

calm,

or scream...

Piranesi

Simply put, I loved this book. It is atmospheric and lovely in ways I have never before experienced. But why? What makes it uniquely beautiful?

This is a book that values the ancient ways of being in the world. It points out the cracks in modernism’s push for the rational and measurable, but not by denying the value of rationality or measurability. No. Instead, Susanna Clarke narrates a proof that the modern agenda is too limited.

Piranesi, though that isn’t truly his name, is supremely ra...

The Birds

They frolic in the sky above
with endless, boundless glee
as sunlight shines on feathered wings:
the birds dont know were quarantined.

Their freedom is not limited
by laws or broad decrees,
and so they fly without constraint:
the birds cant know were quarantined.

They perch on fences with their friends
to chirp and chat so free,
but when I look they fly away:
the birds may know were quarantined.

They sing their songs with silver tune
and dance upon the trees
as if they mean to lift my soul:
...

Thoughts before Super Tuesday

It seems to me, the major question facing Democrats today is two fold: Is it possible to return to the way things were before Trump, and if it is, do we even want that? It’s a big question. Things didn’t seem all that bad before Trump, so a return to those times would be better than how things are now, right?

I suppose we can’t know the answer to that unless we try, so we really need to consider the second part of the question first. Do we even want to return to pre-Trump days? Sure, Obama...

Look. Listen. Receive.

Hey there everyone. This is just a heads up to let you know that I have a new blog post on C.S. Lewis up on the Logos Academic Blog (LAB). If you feel so inclined, head on over and check it out.

And if you feel further inclined, go ahead and sign up for updates from the LAB while you’re there. They post regularly on all sorts of interesting things connected to the world of biblical studies and academia.

The House of Measures and Great Mystery

From the House of Measures and Great Mystery
you call me by name and invite me to see
the wonders of atoms, of quarks, and of pi,
of mass and of motion, of trees and the sky.

To the House of Measures and Great Mystery
I saunter and ramble, I stagger and flee
to learn from the mystics and scientists too,
to read fact and fiction and find both are true.

By the House of Measures and Great Mystery
a river encircles an ancient fruit tree.
The river’s like crystal, the fruit is in season
in winter...

Thor: Ragnarok

Thor: Ragnarok is certainly in my top-two Marvel movies of the past decade, and I’m pretty sure it has displaced Guardians of the Galaxy for the top spot. But why? Beware, spoilers abound . . .

This movie is hilarious, and I mean truly laugh out loud funny. Whether it was Thor trying to convince both Bruce Banner and the Hulk that he likes their individual personality better, or Loki celebrating Thor’s butt-whooping at the Hulk’s hands, or Korg – seriously, Taika Waititi is a genius, both as...

Stranger Things, Season 1

When a friend asked me to pitch Stranger Things a couple days ago, the first thing that came out of my mouth was, “It’s awesome,” but since I hadn’t sat down to thing about the why behind that sentiment beforehand, I couldn’t offer anything more compelling. I will try to be a little more articulate now…

So, Stranger Things season 1 is awesome (and the first episode and a half of season two have basically followed suit). It reminds me of several very different pieces of entertainment/art witho...