I asked for new voices and got some outstanding writers! Today we hear from the erudite James R. Harrington. James R. Harrington earned his M.A. in Ancient History at California State University Fulleron and is a member of the Torrey Honors Institute. James has been a classical educator in a variety of settings over the past thirteen years. He lives in Houston with his wife, Sharon, and their daughter. Harrington began with a series on shields in classical literature and now... Read more
And yet you and I could have wriggled just like him, if we’d wanted to hide the fact that we were contradicting ourselves. His behaviour might have been comprehensible if this discussion of ours had been taking place in a lawcourt, but as things are, given the company we’re in, I can’t understand why anyone would cloak himself in fine but empty words.* Plato pictures men eager to win a debate, not eager to be right. They have proposed a... Read more
Jesus made Peter breakfast and an apostle was reborn. Plato found Socrates and philosophy keeps responding to that relationship. A great good, perhaps the greatest good, of college education is finding a mentor: the older person who does not only teach the craft you need, but the character you lack. This cannot be manufactured or commanded. The time, quiet, and space needed is expensive and hard to find. The just demands of life, earning a living, squeeze the time, fill... Read more
Since 1861 the Democrat Party was not going to win with a vote from the Reynolds family. You have been warned. I am a Garfield Republican. Perhaps the best thing about being a Garfield Republican is nobody gets my vote by default. No unfit candidate gets our votes, but we are not looking for a messiah or a perfect person either. We would not, did not, vote for the worst American president James Buchanan no matter how crazy Fremont was. ... Read more
I am thankful to know His Grace Bishop Thomas, a teacher, leader, and compassionate man worth hearing. Here are some reflections put together by His Grace and a team of Orthodox thought leaders on the urgent need for more ministry to those who “special needs” with context on suffering in the life of the Church. Arise, Take up Thy Bed and Walk “Our Ministry to those with Special Needs” by Bishop THOMAS (Joseph), Peter Schweitzer and Subdeacon David Hyatt Disabilities... Read more
At the end of this year, The Saint Constantine School saw success by any measure and I will share some of those stories with you over time. Our students did marvelously well compared to peers. The School and College are growing. But the excellent numbers are not what I recall at the start of the summer break, but the joy of our teachers and students: the elementary student who built a “hospital” for an injured frog, the moment in a... Read more
The Mistborn series was the best fantastic literature of the last twenty years . . . Maybe. By the end of the last book, one imagined Tolkien if Tolkien had published as a young man and then kept growing. The first three Mistborn books were marked by creative plotting and the creation of a clever alternative magical system. Brandon Sanderson wrote a novel rooted in Latter Day Saint theology as firmly as Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings was rooted in Catholicism.... Read more
Wrong ideas can be helpful. . . Sometimes. Nobody ought to wish to be wrong, but being wrong is not sinful. If you are learning symbolic logic, making an error in moving from one line to the next is not a sin unless when shown the problem you refuse to address the issue and learn. Learning, growing, being human is full of wrong turns, bad ideas, and mistakes. If you are studying the cosmos today, the following explanation for planets, the... Read more
I was chatting with a social media acquaintance, someone I hope becomes a friend, who claimed to know this was not the best world that could be. He believed that I, a Christian, must believe that it is the best possible world. That is true: it is. Yet the cosmos as we know it is not the best of all conceivable worlds. Of course it is not. We have chosen poorly often. Freely humankind decided we have the right to do... Read more
Dido isn’t the only character in Vergil’s Aeneid who resorts to necromancy when she hits the end of her rope. Aeneas himself has recourse to that bastion of Roman state religion, the Sibyl of Cumae, when he loses his way. Having disgraced himself by abandoning Dido and his famous “arms,” Aeneas seeks to regain his honor by an act of filial piety in seeking advice from his father. The only problem is that old daddy is quite dead. In order... Read more
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