Reconsidering How We Make Conversation

Reconsidering How We Make Conversation

A line in great literature can reveal us to ourselves. And while it might not be pleasant, it can be a great gift. Jane Austen has given me a point for self-examination regarding something at the heart of life—how I engage in conversation, and more specifically,...
Do I Really Hear Other People?

Do I Really Hear Other People?

At the heart of relationships between people is hearing. Hearing, says Thomas Aquinas, is how we learn from another person. In the very same vein he says, “Hearing is the way to life.” But there is hearing, and there is hearing. And sometimes we might realize that...
Glory Hidden in the Home

Glory Hidden in the Home

We all want to be seen and approved. Indeed, if we are not seen and approved by someone then we will not only feel but actually be quite alone. It is understandable, then, that a proverbial human temptation is to seek approval or glory for its own sake. We might think...
Never Call Your Wife By Name Alone

Never Call Your Wife By Name Alone

One of the great Fathers of Christianity exhorts husbands in a most touching way. Indeed, it is so touching we must be careful not to miss the deeper point—that husbands have a unique obligation always to be tender in addressing their wife. St. John Chrysostom...
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...

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