Gentlereader, I married Hope. As a result, I end up writing about hope (the virtue) a great deal. This is not just for the purpose of Husband Humor (a genre of jokes no greater than Dad Humor), but because I particularly need hope. Hope is the virtue that is God’s greatest gift to those who are depressed. Things are not better now, but someday. The promise of paradise is hopeful. If you are often sad, then you should have hope with... Read more
Faith is the divine virtue expanding our vision of everything. For those of us who have failed, faith is the substance that disappointed hope finds that helps us live. Faith is rational, passionate, and experiential. Faith moves us to study, love even our enemies, and do works of charity. Silence by Shusaku Endo is a piercingly difficult book about faith: difficult to understand, hard on the emotions, and stirring to be a better person. If asked if I agree with Endo’s vision... Read more
The best professors make you see in a new way, consider again old opinions you thought settled. Mark Twain blasts his ideas about reality in such an obvious way, while posturing as transgresssive, and yet was treated reverently by his contemporaries. He hated Victorian values so much he got rich making fun of them and other than his remarkable Joan of Arc, his work and especially his humor is often as predictable as Internet atheist memes. And yet Leo Tolstoy also postured... Read more
Justice with Mercy When I was a boy I saw a slogan that stuck with me: “No justice, no peace.” That was true and as I got old the truth kept growing. Justice with mercy (God have mercy!) is the way to peace: “Know justice, know peace.” My own unjust acts were made real to me partly through reading as great books showed me where I missed the mark. What is justice? Republic is one place where I keep finding part... Read more
Temperance, that great virtue, amounted to not drinking alcohol to the progressives and that is (almost) unforgivable. That the early Progressive Movement also delivered votes for women makes the Prohibition Ammendment a forgivable error, but still shakes your confidence in the wisdom of other things they did such as the income tax. After all, the classical virtue temperance is so much more than not drinking to excess. Thank God Karen Swallow Price (KSP) has written a book to stir it up... Read more
Read. Read well. Karen Swallow Prior (KSP) will help you do both. I am reading her luminous book On Reading Well. We read for virtue, excellence, and KSP is taking us through the great classical and Christian virtues. Her courage is manifest in choosing prudence. Parents used to name babies after prudence, they still use faith, hope, and charity, but prudence is not popular any more. Youth groups are radical for Jesus, not prudent for Christ. Picking Tom Jones (my parents’... Read more
Reading. If a Christian, you are in a religion that prizes literacy and has spread the art of reading wherever we have gone. If you live in a nation with a Christian history, then literacy was a gift of a Faith that begins the world with the Word. The Word was made flesh and then that Word spoke words, as God always had, and they were written down. He breathed through the authors. We must read if we can and... Read more
Our times have given us a Barnum Brutus. Our Times has published a member of the resistance so brave he gets paid by his opponent to resist. He is so courageous, he will not use his name. He is so afraid of a constitutional crisis that he will ignore the duly elected President of the United States so, having won no votes himself, he can save the voters from what they voted. The unelected will stop the elected lest the... Read more
Growing Up Loving Cowboys When I met my first real cowboy at age five, I was thrilled. No star has ever gotten more adoration than I gave that random rancher on a trip to Arizona. He tied my shoe. My stick horse was ridden long enough that the stick got dangerously pointy and Mother sent Old Paint to stick horse paradise lest I become an impaled rider. We aren’t sure how many more stick-horses I wore out. Cowboys made celebrity animals out... Read more
Do not be weary. Hope is here and asks nothing of us. These are not tiring times so much as tiresome. The world, the flesh, and the devils have nothing new to say, but now they say the same stuff with even more amplification. Yet complaining is even more tiresome. Hope sings in the storm, the tune without words. This time is not worse than other times, in some ways better, and the storm is not so fierce that hope stops... Read more
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