Choosing Joy and the Glass Half Full
Joy might seem an arbitrary thing in its coming and going. That joy is hard to figure out—both what it is and where it comes from—is no surprise, given the depths of the human heart. A question that often roils in my mind is whether I can simply choose to be joyful. I...
Interior Design: Crafting the Homelife We Want
A home is not only where the next generation is initiated into human life. It is also where each of us must find a space conducive to every-day living. And as Wendell Berry insists, all living things need a congenial context in order to thrive. This starts in our...
3 Ways to Rediscover a Father
Much of what we need in life we must ask for. As this is simply a given, it points to the importance of learning how, what, and whom to ask. Thomas Aquinas holds that we can naturally know that there is a God who can help us, and who is worthy of honor and worship....
To Eat Well: 2 Arts and 2 Virtues
So much of what it is to be human is at stake in how we eat. No wonder we need several arts and virtues really to do it well. Thomas Aquinas has much to say about eating. A starting point is how the art of medicine, rightly understood and practiced, should have a key...
What is Glory, and Why It Matters
It is remarkable how many words we use—often even important ones—without a clear notion of what they mean. Glory has been one of those words for me. Then one day I read a definition in Thomas Aquinas that fairly stopped me in my tracks. “The word glory properly...
Touching Death: Mourning Physically through Burial
How we bury our dead is a crucial part of life. We have gotten away from the wise practices of our ancestors. If how they did burial was largely out of necessity, we might still discover just how important those practices are—how much we really need them today. And we...
What We Can Learn from Falling Leaves
Though I love autumn and the fall of leaves, at the same time something in me rebels. Even as I think, “I don’t want to miss their turning,” part of me just wants it to be over. Somehow, like life itself, autumn in its beauty and drama can be just too much. But maybe...
Mothers and Swiss Army Knives: Seeing the Difference
Few of us reach for our Swiss army knife when we simply want to cut something. Aristotle asserts that nature is not like the Delphic smiths, makers of the original Swiss army knife, “a single knife for all kinds of use,” a knife with which, clearly, he was not...
Feeling Invisible: the Challenge and a Remedy
One of the most memorable and significant stories from ancient philosophy is that of the ring of Gyges: the original ring of power. In it we have occasion through reflecting on the experience of invisibility to think about the importance of being seen by others in our...
Discover Your Place as Man or Woman
The word ‘place’ can both mislead and make us uncomfortable. I still think we should consider the ‘place’ of man and woman because it makes us reckon with something that demands attention. How to be a man or woman will always be a central feature of becoming who we...
What Makes Someone Want to Be Virtuous?
There is nothing like parenting, or teaching, or any real formation of the young to help us to see and focus on what really matters. If we have come to the insight that living well—or living virtuously—is at the center of the human vocation, then the enormity of a...
Our Life is So Worth Being Kind
Why are some people kind? This question is especially though of course not exclusively pertinent in forming the young. I think we take kindness for granted, forgetting both its central importance and the need to cultivate it, in self and others. “We are for the most...