Our life is not a movie, thank God. Movies end, life also ends, but unlike a movie the story keeps going. We see God and are finally enfolded perfectly in the divine comedy. God’s comedy begins in a wedding and continues in joy forever. A movie builds to a climax and stops, because instead of centering on an ever-interesting person, God, a mere movie is written by a human about human things. We over focus on self and miss others.... Read more
Dear Jane, Today you are getting married, an institution wise people have called the “a high hall of human happiness” and the “bloodless martyrdom.” How can both things be true? Marriage is one way to happiness. Happiness, eudaimonia, is flourishing body and soul. Marriage is the union of male and female and so expresses in the oneness the fullness of humanity. Men and women have different voices and in marriage both can and must be heard. In marriage you will always... Read more
Babies are born and require everything. You start parenting as both the source of all needs and the servant of the child. Parenthood is a long goodbye: a release of authority and care over time. All babies teach you something, but accidentally. The patience we gained is the result of intent on the part of the infant! Then, you pray, this changes and children begin to teach you. I will never forget when oldest child, Lewis Dayton (LD!), first corrected something... Read more
Pardon me if I cry a bit. The Happiest Millionaire is the best failed film Disney ever made, but I cannot stop thinking about it just now. It features an eccentric educator who makes a good life for his children, a wonderful life, but then is saddened to see it end. The tedium of the third act is so dreadfully slow that many people don’t endure to the moment when the father (Fred MacMurray) sits with his wife in an empty... Read more
If things continue as they are, the last Swedish atheist will get good medical care from Christian Chinese nurses. The good news about global change is that atheism and the religious “nones” are in decline as a percentage of the global population. Humankind is becoming more brown and religious. The future could not be brighter. Why? In China, the official atheistic regime has not been able to keep people away from the truth. In this highly educated country, Christianity is booming. Meanwhile,... Read more
Religious people are growing more numerous, Islam especially, and Christianity is growing much less white. Read more
The news is bad: we cannot do anything that will give meaning and purpose to our lives. Read more
Everyone has a calling. Mine has been to educate Socratically, best I could. My issues have been the big, general issues and if I have thought deeply about a few things, they were topics like Republic where my ideas are not needed in the vast ocean of thought on that nearly-greatest of all great books. I have, as one friend put it, specialized in general education. As a result, when it comes to Christianity my public work and writing have been ecumenical.... Read more
She was an odd child who always seemed to know what was happening. I recall standing with her in Clendenin Elementary School and hearing the fire alarm go off in town. “The high school is on fire,” she said. When I got home, my mom told me Herbert Hoover High (yes, the real name) had experienced a fire. “I know,” I said, “Belinda** told me.” She did this so often that this merely became the most extreme case of Belinda-ism,... Read more
I once wished Christianity, particularly traditional Christianity, was false. Professionally, I was told that being a very traditional Christian in philosophy would make work, already hard to get, harder to get by the President of my secular university. He was being compassionate and, as a more left-of-center theist, giving me what he took to be good advice. He was right and I appreciated his candor and his writing me a job recommendation! I love philosophy and this nagged at me.... Read more
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