I was born in Nashville, Tennessee and raised on a bit of property that has been in my family since the civil war. Neither of my parents went to college but both of them were wise in their own lines of work and this, along with their unending patience with my oddness, afforded me a very good start in my intellectual life. As a boy, I was taken by the beauty of nature, of serious music (thanks first to a cassette of Mozart arias given to me by a loving Aunt), of Shakespeare, and of the pretty girls in my fourth grade class. Thanks to the peer pressure of the lattermost, I pretended an aversion to the more rewarding forms of beauty for the better part of my adolescence.
Thanks again to the generosity of my parents, I was brought out of that miserable deception by a jolting undergraduate education. I met intellectuals for the first time at Union University and felt that, however ill-prepared or ill-equipped to be among them, I was certainly among people of my own sort. I studied for a degree in Church Music, with extra classes in German, Philosophy, and Literature. All these helped me formulate a taste for the best sorts of things our culture could provide. I felt grieved, however, for so many of my peers who filled their lives with leisure of a poor sort—one that made them brutal and tired. I was sorry that they seemed to have so little rich joy and were duped by sensation masquerading as meaning. I considered a career in philosophy, with a view to a sort of apologetic for beauty. I found, however, that though I could convince many people to ascent to the spiritual implications of beauty (I am a Christian, and among Christians, find this theoretical convincing to be rather easy work) yet, this still had practically no effect on their outward behavior. People would tell me that they agreed that they were wasting their time on video games, but would waste on with enthusiasm nevertheless.
After some consideration, I decided on a career in musicology with a view to teach music and art appreciation. It is my belief that, by thrusting the most beautiful things at unsuspecting people in their late teens, they will find themselves surprised by pleasures hitherto unknown to them and pleasures of an intensity far greater than that of the mild sedation and violent sensation of their previous experiences. I suspect there are theological reasons for this, though that is not a matter for this paragraph.
With this career goal in mind, I moved to Glasgow, Scotland and studied musicology with Warwick Edwards, whose sound reasoning, clear writing, and perfect tastes were supremely influential. My interests were divided between renaissance poetry, art, philosophy, theology, and music, but I managed to focus on the relationship between words and music in the motets of the late 15th century. While in Scotland I met the most beautiful woman I know and she agreed to marry me. Since then, we have had four children and a life of happy labor together.
I accepted a teaching position at Grove City College in 2005 and have served here in that capacity ever since. I have written, spoken, and taught always with the goal of sharing beautiful things with an age that has succumbed to every imaginable impediment to beauty.
Thanks again to the generosity of my parents, I was brought out of that miserable deception by a jolting undergraduate education. I met intellectuals for the first time at Union University and felt that, however ill-prepared or ill-equipped to be among them, I was certainly among people of my own sort. I studied for a degree in Church Music, with extra classes in German, Philosophy, and Literature. All these helped me formulate a taste for the best sorts of things our culture could provide. I felt grieved, however, for so many of my peers who filled their lives with leisure of a poor sort—one that made them brutal and tired. I was sorry that they seemed to have so little rich joy and were duped by sensation masquerading as meaning. I considered a career in philosophy, with a view to a sort of apologetic for beauty. I found, however, that though I could convince many people to ascent to the spiritual implications of beauty (I am a Christian, and among Christians, find this theoretical convincing to be rather easy work) yet, this still had practically no effect on their outward behavior. People would tell me that they agreed that they were wasting their time on video games, but would waste on with enthusiasm nevertheless.
After some consideration, I decided on a career in musicology with a view to teach music and art appreciation. It is my belief that, by thrusting the most beautiful things at unsuspecting people in their late teens, they will find themselves surprised by pleasures hitherto unknown to them and pleasures of an intensity far greater than that of the mild sedation and violent sensation of their previous experiences. I suspect there are theological reasons for this, though that is not a matter for this paragraph.
With this career goal in mind, I moved to Glasgow, Scotland and studied musicology with Warwick Edwards, whose sound reasoning, clear writing, and perfect tastes were supremely influential. My interests were divided between renaissance poetry, art, philosophy, theology, and music, but I managed to focus on the relationship between words and music in the motets of the late 15th century. While in Scotland I met the most beautiful woman I know and she agreed to marry me. Since then, we have had four children and a life of happy labor together.
I accepted a teaching position at Grove City College in 2005 and have served here in that capacity ever since. I have written, spoken, and taught always with the goal of sharing beautiful things with an age that has succumbed to every imaginable impediment to beauty.
photos on this website are courtesy of Emily Jefferis at willa j photography
