Latest Posts
A Surprising Fallacy about Kindness
This morning, I read a beautiful and practical insight about a power for good at my fingertips. The effects of kindness are disproportionately far-reaching. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced. And really encouraged. At times the ugliness of how people...
Do the Stars Really Stand in Attendance?
Yesterday I experienced once again the astounding Byzantine liturgy of Epiphany. Among other things, there was the special blessing of water, wherein the entire natural world is invoked as a chorus of witnesses to its Creator. This gives occasion to ask whether we...
Can Every Day Be Christmas?
I find ‘A Christmas Carol’ to be an utterly amazing masterpiece. I know not whether literary critics would frown at me, but frankly I don’t care. We have just read it aloud again as a family. And I am inspired to join Scrooge in his solemn resolution. "I will live in...
He Came to Bring Us Home
There is a Home that is truly our home. And the Father in that home bends all His energy to make possible our taking up residence there. Permanently. It really is that simple. It is simple, but it is also somewhat involved—because life there is so rich. This is not...
Three Ideas for a Richer Christmas Celebration
There is a specific virtue of running a household well. For me, discovering it was one of the great fruits of studying ancient and medieval thinking. According to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, “domestic prudence” arranges everything in one’s home life toward the true...
We All Live in a Perfect House
**Special Message—followed by Wednesday Reflection** Dear Reader: Over the weekend, my wife, Sofia, sent a reflection on our journey with LifeCraft and announced some exciting plans for the future. If you aren't subscribed to our emails or didn't see it, you can read...
Glory Hidden in the Home
We all want to be seen and approved. Indeed, if we are not seen and approved by someone then we will not only feel but actually be quite alone. It is understandable, then, that a proverbial human temptation is to seek approval or glory for its own sake. We might think...
Gratitude Without Limit
The place of gratitude in human life is at once obvious and remarkably complex. Great pagan philosophers (such as Seneca) as well as Christian theologians (such as Thomas Aquinas) have treated it at some length. This much is clear: learning both to be grateful and to...
The Love That Sees Everything in My Life
There is nothing like the experience of being seen by eyes that love you. Here, and perhaps here alone, we feel truly seen. But actually our happiness is grounded in, and indeed requires, an astounding, unique instance of such love: a love that not only sees...
Learning to Call the Physician
Already Plato used bodily health as a helpful analogy for understanding health of the soul. The entire complex realm of cultivating and restoring bodily health is rife with truths applicable to spiritual health, which two healths, of course, while distinct are not...
What Keeps a Father Up at Night
Sleep deprivation is recognized as a form of torture, with good reason. Being kept up at night or inability to sleep is often a serious suffering. Yet being kept up, sometimes in the form of choosing to stay up, is a part of parenting. The arrival of a newborn in a...
Aquinas on What To Do With Fear
We know that each kind of passion has an important place in human life. Contrary to the ‘Stoic’ position, passions are not simply to be squashed or set aside. But discovering and enacting the proper place of passions is anything but straightforward. Thomas Aquinas...