Hope told her daughters this: “Never marry an angry man or a man with an angry father.” This advice has served my daughters well and reminds us that the vice of excessive anger is a terrible danger. Righteous anger is the appropriate response to injustice. The excess of anger becomes an injustice itself and consumes all around. The excessively angry man often sees every action that crosses his will as injustice, because he knows he is right. The angry man is ready with... Read more
“There is no such thing as a bad question.” This is wrong, sort of. There are bad questions, though there are very few bad sincere questions. Imagine a “question” that is just a set up for a lecture or a social media shaming. This is the insincere question and it is worse than asking no questions at all. An insincere question is a bad question, because such a question kills any genuine conversation. The insincerity is a virus that sickens the conversation... Read more
As we saw the pandemic coming in December, we wanted to do something. There was nothing much to do as a family, though we started talking and preparing at The College and School for bad outcomes best we could. Like everyone in an emergency, we wanted to protect the family, especially the “cheeps” as Hope calls the kids. What about food? We have an urban garden (with chickens!) at the School and we know that a great deal of produce... Read more
Eb Dawson of Green Acres and Eddie Munster were discussing a theodicy and Eb was explaining things quite nicely. As a philosopher, charged to examine life everywhere, I still was not quite ready for A Serious Discussion at a TV Land Convention. Finally, I worked up the courage to interject and contribute and discovered Tom Lester had read all the relevant popular literature and some more serious scholarly stuff. He made the proper distinctions and counter-punched some of my distinctions. This was a great... Read more
Let’s go up to Zion as quickly as we can! Often we need to see the depths of our own evil, the wickedness of the world, before we can see the hope of redemption and the glorious goodness of God, but we must not get stuck there. Dante had to go down to go up to God, so every sophomore first reading the Divine Comedy discovers. Heraclitus style aphorisms (“the way up is the way down”) fascinate, as they were... Read more
I was low and should have been. And then came a word from God and nothing external changed, but I was oddly cheered. That cheerfulness kept me alive. It was all weird, not just unusual or funky, but in a very ancient sense of the term “weirdness.” Weird, you see, can mean a supernatural word, one that moves past reason to reality. I heard what this man said, he was known as a prophet, and he felt right. And it... Read more
There may be a time when Simon and Garfunkel do not have something to say in music, but I have yet to meet that time in fifty-six years. I am merely a listener, not one of the seriously erudite and passionate fanbase. Whatever I might say about the duo beyond mere admiration will be challenged and challengeable! This is not about the history, the splits, or a deep understanding of the music. Instead, think of this as a recommendation to... Read more
Earth and water and air- but the beginning and the ending is fire; Light in the first day, fire in the last day, at the coming of the Word; and Our Lord the Spirit descending in light and in fire. Dorothy Sayers wrote a very good play on Saint Constantine, the patron of our College. She ends the play with old King Coel (he that was a merry old soul) who may have been Constantine’s grandfather speaking these “prophetic” lines and then the... Read more
The sun has risen in the East. The faithful at last celebrate Pacha. Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen! When I was a boy, we lived just above a funeral home. Dad is a pastor and occasionally folk would need someone to officiate. Dad was “on call” for funerals. Since (as far as I know) Dad has never lied, this presented him a challenge. How do you preach appropriately when you do not know the man or much about... Read more
Easier times can lead to trivial longings, but at the end of this Lenten season our prayers have been improved. They gain a seriousness, a hopefulness, because the stakes are higher. On Holy Saturday there is a wonderful moment in the liturgy when we pray “now our Lenten work is done” and (sadly!) most years my first thought is “steak!” This year my first thought will be: “When will our Lenten journey away from our church home end? When will this... Read more
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