Angus is waiting for friends to come and play.
So the whirlwind I mentioned in my previous message has subsided — there's still plenty to do, but things are less frenetic. And a bit of a break for the Thanksgiving holiday will be very welcome indeed.
I've continued to add to the Box of Delights that is my micro.blog, and have just this morning resumed writing on the big blog — a post about our current advocates of re-enchantment and the limitations, as I see them, of that approach. (But God bless their work anyway.) And I have some other posts in the queue, including entries in what might be a lengthy series about the family — its role in human flourishing, its health or the lack thereof, its friends and its enemies — largely seen through fiction.
I miss blogging when I'm away from it. Blogging is like essay-writing extended over time. The essayist, I have argued, is a wayfarer, and that's perhaps even more true of the blogger. Blogging is like island-hopping, moving from one island of thought or experience to another and then revisiting the places you know to see them in new ways. And, you know, as T. S. Eliot said, "Old men ought to be explorers."
I am so grateful to all of you who keep track of my journeys — and indeed fund them! You are my provisioners. I hope you look forward to future reports, some of them sober accountings, some of them fanciful traveler's tales. Blessings to you all!