”She,” a friend noted, “is going out with you out of pity.” This was fine. I had a chance and I intended to take it. After all, one evening was better than no evenings. One Chinese dinner with Her was better than a can of sardines at home without Her. Those were the options and pity was fine with me. I was in fact pitiable, having failed my romantic ideals. You can tell a romantic that he should not aspire for... Read more
“Success, recognition, and conformity are the bywords of the modern world where everyone seems to crave the anesthetizing security of being identified with the majority.” In his classic book of sermons strength to love, Martin Luther King Jr. defends the Christian idea that we cannot be conformed to this world. If our state is racist, we must not conform. If our social set condones sexual immorality, we must not conform. He says both. We want to hear neither or one or... Read more
To do theology well is to pray well. Praying requires a “tough mind and a tender heart.” So says a man with both, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Imagine the alternative: Too often Americans are soft headed and hard hearted: too often true of all Americans whether secularists or Christian. Pop secularists talk reason, but are quick to disparage philosophy or attack science with religious implications. Christians often do not understand “faith,” accepting the secular idea that faith is opposed... Read more
Administration must be cut, radically cut (including salaries), at most schools. That’s the truth and I have been saying it for decades. Sometimes this sounds as if I do not value the back office work that must be done. Nothing could be further from the truth: if Roy Disney had not kept the books, there could have been no Walt Disney. The back office makes the work of creative people possible and I have been blessed to many who were... Read more
My Papaw Reynolds had a favorite saying: “Don’t step backwards or the Devil will step right into your footprints.” He meant that the evil one kept driving you backwards until you backed into a wall. My mother reminded us of this truth this week. We sometimes forget, she pointed out, that while our sins and the sins of other people are the source of much evil in the world, there is also a spiritual foe who is always plotting and planning... Read more
Reading Ibn Rushd (Averroes) is good: He is a careful reasoner and a chief cause for the Mediterranean revival of Aristotelian philosophy. Factor in the work of Thomas Aquinas and other medieval thinkers and you have a major reason the great monotheistic faiths produced science. The Islamic philosopher is illuminating even when wrong and he makes a similar mistake to the Athenian philosophers. He comes up with truth that he thinks the elite should hide from the common folk.* This... Read more
Mother’s Day. Father’s Day. Christmas. I am tempted to dodge writing about holidays just now, because no matter what I say . . . I have blown it. (In fact, just this thought: “I have blown it” makes this about me and not about those celebrating or hurting on the holiday.) Let’s take what would seem to be non-controversial: celebrating motherhood. I have a great mother and any excuse to celebrate her life sounds wonderful. Just as I get ready to write,... Read more
Nobody should complain at a party: rejoice with those who rejoice. I love graduations and never understood those who dreaded them. What could be better than seeing students celebrating alma mater and teachers? Graduation is golden. If you get to go, enjoy. Older schools like Rice here in Texas have beautiful ceremonies. Here is hoping that your graduation is not dominated by the educrats. In too many places, even Christian schools, the planning and ceremony are dominated by those who did not... Read more
Dorothy Sayers rightly mourned The Lost Tools of Learning and I share her sorrow. Fortunately a large classical school and college movement has arisen that is giving a new generation back those tools. Yet I see a greater problem than the one Sayers feared: the lost joy of learning. In twenty years of teaching honors college students, I saw many students with high standardized test scores, but who were missing some of the tools needed to learn. There were students... Read more
She is the woman at the well, who met Jesus who told her all she ever did. She began badly and ended well. We are odd in thinking the start is best. It is the end that is the measure of a person, what they have become, out of the accumulation of choices. A good start is valuable and we hope we gave this to our own children, but the end is better. The Greek sages were correct: call no... Read more
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