The Real Targuman

The following is an essay I wrote for our Wittenberg University community. These are compiled on Wittenberg’s site and will be periodically shared here as well: “Presidential Communications” Wittenberg Community, I remember our nation’s Bicentennial. We lived in a new, planned community full of young families, where the centerpiece of the annual celebration was the bicycle parade. Each year we…

The following is an essay I wrote for our Wittenberg University community. These are compiled on Wittenberg’s site and will be periodically shared here as well: “Presidential Communications” June 19, 1865, twenty years after Wittenberg College was founded, news of the Emancipation Proclamation finally reached all the states at the end of the Civil War. This was the day that Major General Gordon…

This month (May 2026) my third essay for the Buechner Review was published, “The Dawn Chorus: Hearing God’s Call.” It is a reflection on my own deliberations (and prayers) before answering the call to become Wittenberg University’s 16th President, one year ago. Frederick Buechner’s autobiographical spiritual reflections serve as a framework as well as a model for my own. I am sure readers of his…

Last year I wrote a short little poem on Mack’s birthday. I shared it with my friend and award winning poet John Poch, now at Grace College in Indiana. (His latest book The Future of Love is out now and it is tremendous!) He replied with the suggestion that I try a form called a “ghazal.” Needless to say, I had never heard of it! This is his note and guidance. Just looking at what you’ve started…

A sermon for Transfiguration Sunday 2026, leading us into Lent. Preached at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Springfield, Ohio. Exodus 24:12-18 2 Peter 1:16-21 Matthew 17:1-9 A lot happens on mountain tops in the Bible. We read time and again of figures who go, or often are sent, “up a high mountain.” It is on a mountain that Abraham was told to sacrifice his son Isaac. Taking nothing with him…

This is an entry in the “Acrostic Contemplations.”  Nothing can separate us from the love of God. No thing. Nothing. It is right there in the Bible, Paul tells us so. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep…

Below is my inauguration address. All of these speeches and things are being archived at the President’s website, but I thought there are likely some of my friends who only see Targuman.org. I am deeply grateful that my friend and colleague the Rev. Canon Dr. Hugh Page provided the Keynote address, “From Crisis to Hope through Love – A Paradigm for Presidential Ministry.” Please go and read that…

August 27, 2025 was my first Convocation as President of Wittenberg University. The tradition is for the new President to give the address and I was happy and honored to do so. Below is the text and you can view the video at YouTube. בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ׃ Convocation, our gathering here together in the first week of classes, is all about beginnings. As a…

An English Translationby Edward M. Cook Notes on Translation The following notes may be helpful in the use of this English translation of the Psalms Targum. An introduction to some of the issues involved in the study and translation of this Targum may be found in the forthcoming Ernest G. Clarke memorial volume, to which the interested reader is referred. The numbering of the chapters and…

“In the face of death, I realized that it was not love that kept me clinging to life but unresolved anger. Love, real love flowing from me or toward me, sets me free to die. Death would not undo that love. To the contrary, death would deepen it and strengthen it. Those whom I love dearly and those by whom I arq loved dearly may mourn my death, but their bonds with me will only grow stronger and…

This is an entry in the “Acrostic Contemplations.”  Manna is a word that remains fairly well known in the English language and most people will even recognize an echo of the Exodus in its usage. The term is actually the Hebrew phrase meaning “What is it?” From Exodus 16:15, מָן הוּא transliterated into the English “manna.” Just a few verses later, the phrase has become a new word in the Hebrew…

This is an entry in the “Acrostic Contemplations.”  Lent, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, cones from Old Dutch and Old German, meaning “long” or “lengthen.” It is a reference to the lengthening of days in the spring and in some Old English texts, the term is synonymous with spring. In Christianity, “Lent” refers to the forty days of penitence that beings on Ash Wednesday goes into to…

Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Epiphany, Year C (February 23, 2025) Genesis 45:3-11, 15 1 Corinthians 15:35-38,42-50 Luke 6:27-38 Psalm 37:1-12, 41-42 “The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the…

Elizabeth’s collection of essays by this title was published by Sunbury Press in November 2024. It is a beautiful and powerful set of reflections upon suffering and grace. She worked with the press to design a small book that can easily fit into a pocket or purse. The book is also available on Amazon, Bookshop, Thriftbooks and Barnes & Noble. Sunbury Press also distributes in the UK on Amazon UK…

I often find myself copying/pasting from PDFs into Word, Notes, OneNote, etc. Unfortunately, every line of the PDF is treated as a single line with a line break after it. The result is a LOT of time spent going back and deleting the line break (carriage return) in order to make the text wrap properly. Using a “paste as plain text” can sometimes work, but is not always an option and doesn’t always…

Today’s your birthday. Just one day.Just one day. That’s all it is. Just one day.  That’s all it took. Just one day.  To take you from us. Just one day. And a lifetime is gone. In just one day.  Today, 16 January 2025, is Mack’s 21st birthday. Or would be, if you had lived to see his 9th birthday and all those that followed.

Sermon for Christmas, Proper I, 2024. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness–on them light has shined.” Happy Christmas! What a warm and wonderful time and place to be together. The opening of our service in darkness with candles and music is a beautiful reminder of the night of Jesus’ birth, with shepherds watching and angles…