Latest Posts
Bitter Herbs: As Important as Ever
“…with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it.” Exodus 12:8 Mustard greens are being genetically ‘edited’ to remove their bitterness. This is supposed to be good news. Many of the most nutritious greens or herbs are bitter to the taste. By nature. Yet...
Importance of Place: Make a House a Home
Bluebirds and tree swallows raise their young in a house. But though they make a nest, they don’t make a home. Humans make homes. A home is a house where humans make a life together. A home is a physical place distinct from all otherers precisely because it is the...
The Gift of Limping: Against Discouragement
“It is better to limp along on the way than to walk with strength off the way.” Augustine of Hippo I meet couples and parents who are struggling with discouragement. It is hard to discern how to face the various challenges of marriage and home life. Especially in our...
Our Need to Garden: Two Urgent Questions
Human nature suggests with some urgency the importance of putting seeds in the earth. We all might stop and give ear to this perennial call and also recognize that our times give it increased urgency. Today, to not-plant seeds should be a rare exception. Aristotle...
Why Celebrate Mother’s Day
The extraordinary richness of what-it-is-to-be-human can be veiled by its normality. Wisdom is often in noticing things so ordinary that they escape notice. Such as motherhood. We should observe Mother’s Day if for no other reason than it prompts us to look again at...
Prioritize the Ordinary: Go for a Walk Together
The path to restoring home-life will be in restoring the ordinary. It might not be easy, but it should be rather obvious what to do. If someone takes a ball away from a child, the child will in any case know what to look for—that is, unless it’s gone so long he begins...
Making Life, with Wendell Berry
Hannah Coulter is a book that can change a person. It’s fiction; but it’s not fictional. It takes place in Kentucky; but it has taken place most everywhere. It’s about ordinary human life; and for that reason it’s extraordinary. At one point Hannah looks back on her...
Start a Good Argument Today with Someone You Love
Plato thought it one of the most important things to get right in life: how we have conversations, and indeed arguments, with the people to whom we are closest. Our most significant conversations will usually have an element of ‘argument.' This in itself is natural....
It’s Not Just about Easter
“This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118 To celebrate Easter well is to learn how to live a truly human life. Right now, this Easter season, we have an utterly unique opportunity to achieve something transcendently important. As...
The Dog of Appetite
“There’s no part of man more like a dog than brazen Belly, crying to be remembered…” Homer, The Odyssey As the Lenten season or what is also called the Great Fast comes to its culmination, I wonder whether my fasting has yielded the hoped-for fruits. Here I reflect...
Making the Long Haul, like a Tree
“for no one is suddenly made perfect.” Venerable Bede Discouragement is a primary even if oft unnoticed enemy of the good life. Frankly, I often see it; and experience it. People with high ideals and fond hopes, both in what they want for themselves and their loved...
Friendship and the Conversations that Really Matter
“One must always tell what one sees.” Charles Peguy So many great conversations never happen. There is nothing like sharing insights with a friend into things that matter, and even things that don’t matter so much. But why is it so difficult? One of the great...