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Digital Practice as Liturgy

Digital Practice as Liturgy

“Hey you, stop underestimating the power of your bodily routines.” Thus says Felicia Wu Song in reflecting on the significance of our digital practices. She even suggests we consider these practices as a kind of ‘liturgy,’ an embodied common practice that both...

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Philosopher Parents, Not Kings

Philosopher Parents, Not Kings

The term ‘philosopher kings’ sticks in the head of students of ancient philosophy. In Plato’s Republic Socrates memorably asserts that “until philosophers take control of a city, there’ll be no respite from evil for either city or citizens…” Plato’s assertion here has...

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Facing Discouragement: A Greek Insight

Facing Discouragement: A Greek Insight

Discouragement, or at least its temptation, regularly accompanies intentional living. Even if we do not formulate it explicitly we find ourselves feeling “why do the good things I want have to be so difficult?” It is a consolation to know this is not unique to our...

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Toxic Fatherhood?

Toxic Fatherhood?

There are important analogies between a father in a family and a ruler in a nation. This is perhaps especially clear in the consequences of their failure. Aquinas writes that “royal dignity is rendered hateful to many people on account of the wickedness of tyrants.”...

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Master of His Time

Master of His Time

“He had no ‘time of his own’ (except in his bed-cell), and yet he was becoming master of his time; he began to know just what he could do with it.” J.R.R. Tolkien, Leaf by Niggle Many of the greatest traps of our day appear in the guise of simple math. One of them...

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To Be Realistic about Friendships

To Be Realistic about Friendships

Once after giving a lecture on friendship I was told I was undermining the hearers ability to have relationships with diverse people. Clarity on this issue is crucial. What had I asserted in my lecture? Aristotle’s principle: deep friendship requires unity of...

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Good in Disasters and Mishaps?

Good in Disasters and Mishaps?

“Everything that happens in corporal creatures redounds to the usefulness of man.” Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Job How should I think about a sprained ankle, a tree fallen in the road, a case of indigestion or insomnia, a disease in fruit trees, a drought, or even a...

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Ending ‘Summer’ Intentionally

Ending ‘Summer’ Intentionally

‘Summer’ is a season given bounds as much by schooling, work, and vacation as by the earth’s relation to the sun. Though we have another month until the autumnal equinox, most of us experience summer as ‘done’ by around mid-August. I think it reasonable that we accept...

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Two Ways to Listen to the Ultimate Audio Book

Two Ways to Listen to the Ultimate Audio Book

“[T]here is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above and below, note, read. God whom you want to discover, did not make the letters with ink; he put in front of your eyes the very things that he made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that?”...

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A Lesson from Germanic Lands: The Key to Culture

A Lesson from Germanic Lands: The Key to Culture

Visiting a place with deep cultural roots can teach us something even if such culture seems unattainably remote. Romano Guardini in his Letters from Lake Como attempts in the 1920’s to capture the essence of the older culture progressively upended by the industrial...

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Remembering the Dead, One Year Later

Remembering the Dead, One Year Later

How we remember the dead is significant in how we live. Good ‘remembering’ in general is part of how we live in the present. This is very human, for to be in time is to be on the boundary of the eternal, where past, present and future are as one. The Byzantine...

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