“Mmm-mmm good.” That’s what Campbell’s Soups were: good. At least ads told kids this back when oldsters like I am were kids. If you could get the soup inside you, goodness followed. Soup was not just good, it was beyond words: mmm-mmm. In my grandmother’s generation, advertisements told her that Campell’s Soups ingested would give a person vigor and strength for no more than ten cents a can. I ate enough Bean with Bacon Soup to be given great vigor... Read more
Imagine a college administrator so obsessed with the “college experience” that he was willing to sacrifice college education for the sis-boom-ba of Tom Brown at Harvard. Tom Brown may not learn much about geography, history, or philosophy, but he plays football, meets a girl, and has the Collegiate Experience. The Collegiate Experience may not prepare you for paradise, or even a good job, but it is easier than studying. Education is hard, edutainment easy. That’s one reason we prefer the... Read more
An older man I knew once said to me: “I have not gone to enough school to be that wrong.” He had a point. Some ideas are so crazy that people need “education” in order to believe them. Nothing is so good (not even education!) that we cannot mess it up. Teach a man to love his neighbor and he will get confused and start empowering his neighbor in his errors, because he assumes setting boundaries cannot be loving. Learning... Read more
Sometimes there is a good time that is not fancy, but comes simply, quietly, and sweetly. Once in a busy week, full of big events and things to do, I experienced a bit of joy. Listening to an excellent reading of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in the Lamb and Flag (the best of the Oxford pubs used by the Inklings) with Hope, one of our college students, and other Saint Constantine School families was good. There was joy, a... Read more
He was a teacher who would not give up on almost any student. I saw him spend hours helping a student with a very foolish idea about a text to see that his idea was foolish. (Trust me. It was.) In his late seventies, he could still joyfully work with freshmen in college on a text he knew (in Greek) for over thirty hours of class in a weekend! He always was ready for more exploration of the books he loved. You... Read more
If you love wisdom, then you pray for mercy from God, because wisdom is unrelenting. Wisdom keeps pressing her case without ceasing. Are you tired? Wisdom deserves attention. Are you wrong? Wisdom tells you. Wisdom is unchanging while our circumstances change. How we apply wisdom certainly shifts and this creates the (sometimes comforting) illusion that wisdom changes. If it changes, then it is not wisdom, just practical advice. Meanwhile, goodness, truth, and beauty go on. The truth was that there... Read more
“I would really like to persuade you.”** Socrates is confronted with his failure to persuade his students (Republic Book II) and gives a saving answer. Education has crashed, but instead of blaming someone else, Socrates takes the blame and the responsibility to find a solution. That is a real teacher. Almost every word he says in reply to his students matters. Socrates shows he is a real teacher and not a sophist, a wise guy for hire. He does not blame... Read more
The Royal Shakespeare was technically perfect, energetic, and missed the point of the play or worse, gave us a bowdlerization for sensitive contemporary minds. Cleaning up Shakespeare has a long history that makes our particular attempts amusing. Shakespeare drove the Victorians crazy, because he was too good to ignore and too earthy for polite company. A play like Merry Wives of Windsor had naughty bits and John Falstaff, that no good lover of sack and mischief, may have gotten his comeuppance,... Read more
I stood in front of his stone in the English church and read words carved there, as immortal as his crew could make them: Abounding in all those qualities that constitute a Christian and a gentleman He fulfilled the various obligations of a son and a brother less as a duty, than as a labor of love Kind, affectionate, and generous friendship with him was more than a name, it was a tie that he hallowed, a band he never... Read more
We need more persuasion and less winning. Persuasion is a rule based method of helping a community, all of us, find truth, goodness, and beauty. Persuasion is not manipulation, that is tricksy power. Persuasion makes everyone more themselves while strengthening the community. Persuasion produces unity through hard won agreement that is sincere and grounded in experience, arguments, and a consensus. Such agreement is a firm foundation for going forward, because a persuaded group would need further persuasion (and not just... Read more
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