Absent friends, those who have gone ahead of us in death, make doing alone what they used to do with us painful. Tasks, especially ones where the absent friend was most excellent appear impossibly difficult. Yet the discussion must continue while we are live. A man must answer the questions that threaten to drown him like a great wave sweeping over an island. When Socrates died, his followers had to decide what to do. The teacher was gone. How could they go on? He... Read more
Nobody knows what will happen in the next year. The magi have been overturned and inside information is useless. President Donald John Trump is as rare as a black swan in Medieval logic and impeachment has happened twice. We have no data and this tempts thoughtless men to opine madly. Nobody knows what will happen if this President of the United States is impeached. The House has decided, just before an election year, to look into impeaching the President of the... Read more
As Autumn comes, I am happy, Christmas is coming, but I am also reminded of absent friends: endings are all around. Houston is a city pointed deep into the twenty-first century, but I am a man of the twentieth century. As the years go by, my time is more past than future and that is a bit sad, but also a foundation. If you have lost someone, an Uncle Charlie, an Aunt Jean, a Father Michael . . .the fallen are... Read more
A Near Thing I miss beauty, truth, and goodness, because my mind and spirit are willing, but the rest of me is weak. Maybe the same is true of you, but all I know is that distractions can get in the way of learning. This weekend I slogged through the noise of life to learn, but it was not easy. What was happening on Facebook? Was my Twitter feed blowing up with breaking news? Hope (the Fairest Flower in Christendom) looks... Read more
They are so dangerous Plato invented a word for them: Tyrant-Makers.* What do tyrant makers do? These democratic, state sponsored teachers come to educate the very best students. Their frugal parents want their student to make coin as a result. If the student is smart enough, he realizes that freedom is not the same as liberty. Since he is not being educated in virtue, he chooses freedom over liberty. Virtue conquers self, absolute freedom indulges self.** The very cleverest of students will... Read more
The best teacher is not a machine, someone that can be replaced like a part when missing. A very great teacher, Socrates, was killed by the city and yet, somehow, his students had to go forward. If you were a very great teacher, like Socrates, then you might have a very great student, Plato, who could pass your legacy forward, best he could. Plato’s best was very great indeed. What of rest of us? All of us have mentors, pastors, teachers... Read more
Let’s see justice and become just. This is so uncontroversial, we might be bored. We should stop, think about this, and do something. Why? There is a good bit of injustice around and we are all (almost surely) contributing to that state. We could begin in the Bible with the Christian ethic of love and demands for selfless leadership. God have mercy on us. Yet we might be deaf to this voice, having read it and explained it away too often. Instead,... Read more
The Beauty of Ratiocination Ratiocination, precise thinking, is rare, too rare. As a result of a mother who gloried in precision and then the revelation of logic (language given a mathematical precision), ratiocination was always a good in our house. This can be taken too far as there are moments when a request to clarify just what one means by “doing the dishes” may be, just might be, an attempt to dodge the chore and not precision. A kid can confuse “ratiocination” (good in its... Read more
Love is better than fear, revenge is not justice, and sometimes you should get away from vile people, before vile people get rid of you. So I learned from John’s Gospel and Hamlet, two works read in one weekend. Hamlet is funny in a Halloween-can-be-jolly sort of way, profound, sad, and wise. John wrote a Gospel that keeps showing that perfect love casts out all fear, even on the cross or in the tomb. Shakespeare’s Hamlet had the Gospel of mercy, grace, and... Read more
I am told some Christians apologized to plants. Good for them, theoretically, as this is just so, though I wonder if they were merely clownish instead of echoing Tolkien. We should apologize to the trees, but not because some vague, White Western post-modern leftish guilt induces intellectually bankrupt words. I am sorry for any time I have made a wasteland rather than a garden. God loves gardens so much, He expelled evil from the beauty. Thank God our college and... Read more
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