Challenges, not Suffering

Last updated on: March 28, 2017 at 11:58 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

Teach bright students, get great questions. Teach bright students and eventually they become peers and ask even better questions. Recently one such clever person asked: Does suffering build character and if it does, what is an appropriate way to educate in light of that? This is a tricksy question and requires some important clarifications before we can start to answer the question. First, what do we mean by suffering? There are (at least!) two kinds of suffering. The first sort of “suffering”... Read more

Don’t Ask for a Refund: Not Even Attacked

Last updated on: March 27, 2017 at 7:55 am By John Mark N. Reynolds

During the horrible circus fire of 1944, when many children were burned alive, this happened: Another officer had had a long day. He’d started before noon, doing traffic on Barbour for the big crowd coming in. Now he drew duty at the Brown School, becoming the officer in charge. Three adults approached him. “Where do we get our refunds for our circus tickets?” they asked. The man was so nonplused he didn’t even laugh at them. “I’m sorry,” he said,... Read more

The Band Played as the Fire Burned: The Great Big Top Fire and Being Human

Last updated on: March 27, 2017 at 7:49 am By John Mark N. Reynolds

167 people were burned alive at the circus and almost seven hundred were injured. Nothing tells us more about ourselves than how we react in a crisis. That moment always comes, if not dramatically, then at the hour of our death, when all that is left is what we have made ourselves to be. No time for school. When things are bad, you do not have time to learn. If your school failed you, kept you inside and taught you... Read more

Yesterday I Went to the Circus and Here is What I Learned

Last updated on: March 27, 2017 at 7:42 am By John Mark N. Reynolds

I am not a circus person. Fewer and fewer Americans are circus people, but I am in the last generation to think this odd. Any linguistic phrase containing “circus” no longer means much to my students. . . they have not been and so don’t get it. “It’s a regular circus.” used to mean “busy, interesting, and a bit chaotic,” and now would mean “mostly empty and dying”. “Like the circus came to town” meant everyone noticed and now means... Read more

Today I Go to the Circus

Last updated on: March 24, 2017 at 7:40 am By John Mark N. Reynolds

Right after I write this, I will go the circus and I hope to learn something from the experience of the Big Top while I still can. I have been to Ringling Brothers and Barnum Bailey Circus twice, once as a child and once as a parent of children. I have also been to a few smaller circuses and to carnivals with circus-like features. I cannot say that I enjoyed the circus at any age, though I was one of the last... Read more

Our Wills, Our Freedom, and Timelessness (Consolation of Philosophy Summed Up)

Last updated on: March 23, 2017 at 8:01 am By John Mark N. Reynolds

We can be happy, though not jolly, regardless of circumstances. Jolliness, a cheerful feeling, is excellent, and we are glad when it comes, but such a feeling cannot and should not stay. We are here in a school for souls, eager to become adults and not children. Adults are independent, love eternal things, and are not slaves to circumstances or any outside tyrant. We can only get there through hard things. Each of us have some class that is hard for us,... Read more

The Consolation of Philosophy (III/III)

Last updated on: March 21, 2017 at 11:27 am By John Mark N. Reynolds

Happiness is the Goal Philosophy gives us a hard truth: money, power, glory, fame cannot make us happy. The entire Earth and all of human history are nothing compared to eternity. God loves us. Jesus entered our history. They have meaning, but they are not enough for a happy life. We need not hate them, but we cannot build our life on them. Yet philosophy turns us away from despair by pointing us to true happiness. We must learn to... Read more

The Consolation of Philosophy (II/III)

Last updated on: March 21, 2017 at 6:05 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

We need to know ourselves to do philosophy, that is the lesson of Socrates. We must know our nature to be happy, that is the message of Philosophy. We must know God to incarnate, to live, either truth. That is Jesus. The good news allows us to hear some difficult truths without despair. We can know Jesus and so know hope . . . nothing is so bad that we need to give up. There is a hard truth that used... Read more

The Consolation of Philosophy is Hard, but Good (I/III)

Last updated on: March 20, 2017 at 2:47 am By John Mark N. Reynolds

I. Two Truths: For the Overly Sad or the Overly Cheerful One cause of our sorrow is we forget our true natures. If we think “we are just no good,” we lie. If we think we “should do as we will,” then we lie. Much of our sorrow comes from forgetting the truth. We are souls created in the image of God. This means that if anyone tells you that you have no value, they are wrong. If anyone tries to transgress... Read more

The Worst Argument about Morality on the Internet?

Last updated on: March 20, 2017 at 2:38 am By John Mark N. Reynolds

Take an issue, any issue. If you make an argument or state an opinion about that issue, let’s call it X, somebody somewhere who agrees with you on the immorality of X, but wants to do X, will say: “How can you care about X when Y is so much worse?” A common variation is “don’t talk to me about X when Y is happening.” This might be sensible if the person meant something like this: “X is bad. We... Read more

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