Lord Byron is a poet vaguely known, little read. He can teach all of us something, even if for your sins you never have to read his “classic” poem Don Juan. Byron himself was a terrible man, a human resource department disaster, with an ear for a jingle and a direct pipeline to the spirit of the age. As a result of his trendiness, he was an early social media star, forgiven for his vices, though like all such people,... Read more
Every year Americans face two anniversaries on one day: the sinking of the White Star Liner Titanic and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. This year, for assorted reasons, I have been trying to understand John Wilkes Booth. He was no madman, thought himself a great man, and might have been if he had not become a monstrous man. If we merely mock him, then we cannot understand him and so avoid him. Days before April 14/15, Booth had decided,... Read more
The way is shut. It was shut by the martyred dead and only on the Last Day will the risen Martyr open the door. In Constantinople there is a door frame where a tyrant sultan hanged a Christian patriarch by the neck until he was dead. The piety of the condemned man, his fasting and life of sacrifice, meant that his body was too light to drop and so quickly end his suffering. Instead, he was tormented for hours. So... Read more
Can Facebook cancel Greek history? Why would they try? Or are they merely unwilling to advertise the bicentennial of a republic in a region where democracy is imperiled? Are they sorry that Greece defeated the Ottoman Empire to win liberty? Have they forgotten that one cannot say “democracy” without the Greek? Our College and School celebrates the bicentennial of Greek independence with no monument except one from the heart. The faculty chose the speech of Pericles and our students recounted portions... Read more
Athens is a home of all who desire to know. There is a diaspora of Greek people spread out all over the world, but there is a diaspora of the heart for Greece. There are those of us that owe Greece a debt culturally and intellectually? For the Christian, Athens is the city where Saint Paul began the salvation of philosophy. When the Parthenon was dedicated to the true Virgin, not merely Athena, then a process began that would produce... Read more
One Christian in Crete, in an illuminated cave, was greater than all the treasures of antiquity. Minos, maze, Minotaur: so my imagination dreamed of Crete and on the island imagination is found in the stones of Minoan culture. On this ancient island, mother of one of the oldest Mediterranean cultures, Plato’s Athenian Stranger created mythical Magnesia as an ideal city, since the greatest god, Zeus, was born there. The ruins of ancient, pagan Crete are powerful and the images, even... Read more
Make history. Tell a story and root that story in the people, family, and times. Otherwise, we can become rootless captured by our facile judgments of those who came before us. We expect to live in the best of times, so when we discover we live in the worst of times, we forget that this always is true. Every age is golden and dross: the best of times, the worst of times. We must find this in the ancient ways... Read more
Two hundred years ago brave men stood for liberty against a cruel empire. They could not fail for the diaspora came to help them. Greek philosophy, science, religion had done so much to create the world that when she needed us, we came. Children born in other lands returned and paid the debt they owed. Hellenic culture sent out ideas that created Athens, Alexandria, Antioch, Aksum- classical culture fused with vibrant Christian Orthodoxy that made a commonwealth of nations (Romania,... Read more
Rootless, lost, unattached, homeless: these feelings overwhelm those who forget the mothers and fathers that brought them to this place and time. We have been born, children of science, philosophy, and Christian theology, at the end of a long line of good mothers and fathers. Duty demands, morality necessitates, that we honor those who gave us good gifts. Who are the ancestors of the civilized? They are from many nations, tribes, and peoples, yet some synthesized, integrated, and endured more... Read more
Spring has sprung. In Houston that means critters, sheep gamboling at The College, chickens laying eggs at The School, and the hawks and feral cats lurking nearby. The mosquitos have not yet reached their full gigantic size- still unable to carry a gator to their bayou home. This is a time for the younglings explore. One morning I came out the front door to find a dove nesting in our window box bringing two eggs to maturity. She looks like... Read more
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