232 You would not find out the boundaries of soul, even by travelling along every path: so deep a measure does it have.* Heraclitus of Ephesus, theist and curmudgeon (a common combination), knew that people are interesting. That’s easy: such an aphorism could fit on a Salada tag. He went further by saying why this is true: the soul, the ground of our being, is deep. Our souls are not infinite: we do contain much, but not everything. Still, any person’s soul,... Read more
250 Those who speak with sense must rely on what is common to all, as a city must rely on its law, and with much greater reliance. For all the laws of men are nourished by one law, the divine law; for it has as much power as it wishes and is sufficient for all and is still left over.* So said Heraclitus of Ephesus, one of the first philosophers in the Mediterranean world. He turned from the anti-intellectual polytheism... Read more
We have never met living beings from another world. There are UFOs. Will we contact beings from other worlds soon? When we do, and I hope we do, nobody has any idea what they will be or think. For some odd reason, science fiction this side of Ray Bradbury and CS Lewis has a secular tone. . . Writers assume we will face evil or good Nones from the Stars. That’s not very imaginative. If we allow ourselves a bit... Read more
A Brief Introduction Comics counted when I was a kid. If you are my age (old), you recall Stan Lee (Rest in Peace!) saying “excelsior” (had to look it up even though I lived in New York State) in a book with ads for sea monkeys, buckets of army men, and x-ray glasses. Basic economic ideas have never been taught better than in Scrooge McDuck’s episode in Tralla La. If the movies are now (often) better than the comics, the... Read more
On several Memorial Days in Wayne County, New York, I gave the address for the Daughters of Union Veterans. I owed this honor to my wife’s grandmother, an active member to the end of her days. Each time there would be a cluster of older women who had decorated the graves of the veterans, especially those who died in the Civil War. Of those present at any of those addresses, Hope and I most probably are the only ones that... Read more
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
Build that wall if you have good laws. The law is why cities build walls and without the rule of law there is no reason to build a wall. The rule of law provides many good things worth protecting, even the most superficial are miracles of organization and customs. Culture makes goods possible that we could not have alone. Jesus Christus, Unser Heiland* is available for a listen now, thank you Alexa, and Heraclitus can be read immediately, thank you Kindle.... Read more
Upstart Crow made me laugh so much I began to wonder: how could any show be this witty so often? And then we moved into later episodes and I saw that the idea began to fray and genius fade . . . So I appreciated the humor of the early episodes even more. The early episodes feel like a funny, humane literature major somehow got permission to make a show that depends on knowing Shakespeare, the history around Shakespeare, and bizarre... Read more
“The Devil made me do it.” A cheeky television catchphrase from my boyhood begged indulgence, because the naughty acts could not be helped: “The Devil made me do it.” Nonsense. Devils exist, but if they make us do something, this is only because we gave them permission to act earlier. Devils are powerless against the Almighty, and those created in His Image need not suffer from demonic control. Like Sauron in Lord of the Rings, they can whisper and tempt,... Read more
To get us to adulthood, God speaks in signs to His children. He wishes us to think, is here to lead us in a personal relationship with His Spirit, and so is clear where He must be, but often is cryptic where we need space to learn. Jesus found two men wandering away from Jerusalem and instead of meeting their felt need, He met their deepest need. They were broken that He was dead, but only because they had misunderstood... Read more
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