Sometimes we are stupid. At least sometimes I am stupid. I should not confess anyone else’s failure! I am most stupid when I dialogue with someone else and assume, or pretend, I know that they are foolish or utterly wrong. I see the grit in their mental eye, but miss the log in my own sight. That is the moment of epic folly on my part. Another soul, created in the image of God, has a passionate belief and I... Read more
A civilization cannot survive for long if it stops asking the right questions. I used to think there were no bad questions. Kind, overly kind, teachers even suggested this was true. Enough years of examining self and seeing my flaws showed me that this was not, quite, right. There are bad “questions.” Bad “questions” are insincerely asked. Sometimes as a student, I would ask a “question” that merely was a way of showing how much I knew, or thought I... Read more
What if nobody is listening? Listening, God help me, is harder for me than is talking. At age seven, I could blatherskite with the best and if anyone ever talked themselves to death that person would have been little me. My Mom could not have listened to all I had to say about stuff if she tried. Mom did the best she could. After a bit, it occurred to me that all the boiling ideas in my mind that seemed... Read more
Nobody wanted to tell him that he should not be president, that he had slipped, especially toward nighttime. Nobody would tell Marshal Petain that the Victor of Verdun, hero of World War I, the war to end all wars, was no longer the man he once had been. They were kind, they walked in their hopes. As a result, they pushed him to a role he could not fill, flattered him by lies. They were merciful, but cowards. They should... Read more
Wonder about difficult, good, true, and beautiful works, but wonder. Few artifacts of human creation are perfect, so even the best require critical examination. A perfect work cannot be harmed by our reasonable inquiry and a bad piece is exposed. The human soul grows and education gives that soul the needed matter for health. These assumptions have governed classical education for millennia. Great works, plays, films, books, music, are examined in a community. Guides shepherd toward new understandings and so the canon can grow. Each generation... Read more
The job of serpents is to question what has been said, that of Wisdom to clarify what is true. When asked a question, Mom often suggested: “Look it up.” Why? Maybe, just maybe, what seemed true was not. Make sure to look up what is claimed. We can create documents easily, so lies, or shoddy intellectual work, can travel quickly. One hour, right now, spent reading primary sources is more valuable than one hour reading social media. The books in... Read more
She had a revelation that put together all she had seen and knew. One woman confronted power and tried to save Jesus. She knew the Governor, she knew God, and she had a dream. Her name was Procla and when history was heading toward hundreds of years of Imperial rule, she stood for justice, her memory is eternal. The church remembers Procla, the wife of Pontius Pilate, the governor that bowed to a mob and killed Jesus. Who can know why for... Read more
Be brave. Be prophetic, but take care. Jeremiah loved Judah, would take nothing, certainly no gold, from Babylon, but Jeremiah predicted victory for Babylon and just punishment for Judah. That is intellectual bravery. There is no courage in attacking an establishment that does not pay you or that you despise. Many would rather lose their jobs than their social status. There is bravery in speaking the truth to the powerful in the group that pays your salary or whose approval you... Read more
We can be happy. That is no small thing. If you must deal with depression, biologically based, then having something else, another reality, is meaningful. After all, life can be tedious and bad things happen. People around us make damnable choices, we make damnable choices, and we are sad, yet the God of love stands ready to make all things whole. That is what reason tells us and reason does not give into biology. That is the great error of... Read more
Against all temptations, keep asking hard questions of the powerful and providing comfort to the despised. The traveling salesmen of the Establishment throttle online media, movie production, and the music that gets promoted. The educrat keeps ignoring goodness, truth, and beauty for more administration, more quibbling, all in the cause of more funding. Against this situation we must not create a parallel culture of sophistry and argumentative foolery. Perilous times tempt to easy answers, finding ways to agree with the... Read more
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