Let’s build a new city for the remnant of the people of God! That’s a good, big, and honorable call and it can be done. People have gone to new lands and built something out of almost nothing. How much easier to create a community in this land! If you are building a new business, ministry, or school the lessons of the community builder apply to you. Somewhere in the DNA of any Western culture, there are the founding lessons... Read more
By now on December 7, Pearl Harbor was a smoking ruin. The Empire of Japan decided to take on the United States of America in a war the Empire could not win if the United States decided to fight. Japan may have done the one thing necessary to provoke such a fight. We are right to remember Pearl Harbor. Brave men and women fought and died. Such courage is worth remembering, but courage in the instant moment of crisis is... Read more
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
Select your answer to see how you score.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In