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...
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...
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...
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.”...
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...
A Husband’s Self-Examination and Jane Austen’s Mr. Bennet
Seeing our own weakness exemplified in someone else, including and perhaps especially in artistic representation, can be a great opportunity for us—if we recognize ourselves, and also see the weakness for what it is. Recently as we were reading Pride and Prejudice out...
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...
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...
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...
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?”...
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...
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...