Gratitude Without Limit

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...
Is My Body Mine?

Is My Body Mine?

“My body is not my own, but my wife’s.” So John Chrysostom admonishes a husband to tell any woman who would try to seduce him. In an age when many, surely including us, are tempted to see our body as ‘our own,’ this raises an issue of the first importance: what really...
Recovering Leisure at Thanksgiving: Planning Spontaneity

Recovering Leisure at Thanksgiving: Planning Spontaneity

It is one of the great crises of our day, the more serious for its being largely unnoticed. The lack of truly ‘free time’ in our life is masked by our referring to chunks of our time as ‘free.’ But for several generations, wise observers have pointed to a radical new...
What the Raspberries Said

What the Raspberries Said

“The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Proverbial statements often contain much wisdom. When they come to mind, it might be a fitting opportunity to ponder what deeper truth they contain. This proverb came to my mind while pruning raspberries...
Christmas Details Matter

Christmas Details Matter

“[T]he whole of man, soul and body, is nourished sanely by a multiplicity of observed traditional things.” Hilaire Belloc, ‘A Remaining Christmas’ Real festivity, like a human person, has a soul and body. A person’s thriving is most of...

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