Just when you think you have won, that is when many people lose. This lesson is as old as Homer, though Virgil told it best. The wealthy, more than a little soft, Trojans held off the Greeks for a decade and then the Greeks went home. After ten years of siege, the party was on. And the Trojans were about to win. They simply had to be smart and the war would be over and the Greeks vanquished. Sadly, unexpected victory... Read more
Beauty, Truth, and the Good are real. What do I mean by that? Beauty, Truth, and the Good exist independent of human minds. They exist in the Mind of God (at least) and so can be known. If the Good can be known, the moral life is possible. If the Truth can be known, then error is avoidable. If Beauty can be known, then we can choose beauty over ugliness. The combination of goodness, beauty, and truth will produce a... Read more
Scrooge got angry with his nephew Fred over a “Merry Christmas” claiming he would like to see such humbugs boiled in their own pudding and buried with a stake of holly in their hearts.* This is a far worse reaction to Christmas than a Starbucks red cup. Scrooge loves money because he thinks it keeps him safe. He is a fearful man and money protects him from the world. Oddly, there are not-really-Christians who claim that people should give (especially... Read more
Herod saw the eternal message of the Star of Bethlehem and could only think about his temporal rule. Real beauty filled the sky and all he could see was a problem. Confusing what is eternal with what is mortal or changing is one way a culture finds to die. People refuse to compromise on what they should be willing to concede, but will easily give up what no person should ever surrender. This happens when a man will die for tariff... Read more
By the time Christmas comes some people are tired of sappiness and feel happiness when they can stop with the Holiday cheer. Partly, this is due to the Scrooge that lives in every human heart that must be boiled in a holiday pudding and have a stake of holly driven through this wickedness in our hearts. Mostly, the weariness is justified, because we skip Advent and go straight to Christmas. This is like missing Lent and complaining about the size... Read more
We can hate ideas, but we cannot hate people. At the same time, we can think about any idea, but some relationships with people are too toxic to be endured. To put it simply: at The Saint Constantine School, our students think hard about Marxism, but we would not let Lenin teach. Marxism is a bad idea, but bad ideas are only dangerous in bad men. Lenin was a bad man. If you doubt that communism never works, I offer North Korea... Read more
If you have never sent a text to the Boss and had autocorrect change a perfectly normal word to a very bad word, you have not yet known terror. When first it happens, you hope the Boss knows you do not speak that way and that autocorrect does funny things. Imagine the horror, however, if the Boss read your autocorrected post and liked it. It is little known, very little known in fact, that the origins of Santa is an autocorrect... Read more
Recently I marked a change in my daily prayers: I began to pray for the President Elect after praying for President Obama for eight years. The old order is changing and is giving way to the new. That is the way of a Republic. I pray for our head of state, because I should. Why? I am an American and will stand before God as an American. Every nation, tribe, and people will stand before God and I am American... Read more
Let’s celebrate the coming of Jesus, but not quite yet! We are “between” in the United States and every school teacher feels the joyous tension of being past Thanksgiving and yet weeks from Christmas. Even our college students feel it, the anticipation with so much left to do. If you are not a teacher, work still feels different than it did. When working at Metropolitan insurance, we did not wish our clients to slow down, and many had coming tax... Read more
Listening to Mozart live is one of the few musical experiences where I am made calm, yet not sleepy. I was lucky enough to hear Jeffery Kahane conduct and play piano for a packed house in Houston. We have had a wonderful, but busy holiday with much to do later to get ready for the work week. In such situations, almost all television would have failed to distract me from the five hundred and fifty three details that need attention, but... Read more
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