Some great books I read and reread. Wisdom, insight, and sheer beauty come with care. Much is gained the first time a great book such as Jane Eyre is read, perhaps most of the wisdom. The deeper wisdom in Bronte’s book, for example, the relationship of the entire novel to the Biblical book of Revelation, comes over repeated readings. Every scholar I respect has read and reread key books. Pick a few and try to learn deeply. Naturally one should... Read more
Writing every day impresses on me how hard finding just the right word, phrase, or sentence can be, let alone crafting an entire essay or book. Some like Plato can capture the words, in beautiful phrases, in sentences that are perfect, in books that are greater than the wonderful parts. Others can do just one thing: Churchill knew words, phrases, and sentences, though his books were not as good. Charlotte Bronte writes life changing books, even when her paragraphs sometimes... Read more
I am a Christian because of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. I am a Platonist because the ideas of Plato supplement and explain best those areas not directly dealt with in revelation. If I call myself a neo-Platonist, or sort of Platonist, it is partly because Plato is famously hard to understand. There may be as many “Platonisms” as there are Platonists! Perhaps nobody should be so cocky as to call themselves a Platonist, but instead should be called... Read more
The Fall of Gondolin is for the serious reader of JRR Tolkien’s mythology, but not one so serious that he is offended by the “Elvish” of the Peter Jackson movies. This is for the readers who takes Tolkien seriously, but is not a scholar of the series. Not everything Christopher Tolkien has edited from his father’s work has been so easy. Christopher Tolkien has given us works of scholarship showing the development of his father’s ideas spanning an entire history of... Read more
In the center of God’s educational program for humanity were the Jewish people. For centuries God worked to guide one people to become human teachers for all of humankind. God wished for consent and a loving relationship. He had to teach the very vocabulary of liberty and be patient as time was lost by bad decisions. While God prepared to send His Son as a Jewish man, the centeral Revelation of history, His teachers kept making a way for Jesus.... Read more
A teacher often has students who surpass him. Hurrah! One who writes here on occasion is Dr. Holloway. Dr. Eric Holloway received a solid grounding in classical education at the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University. Eric continued schooling to complete a MSc in Computer Science at the Air Force Institute of Technology and a PhD in Computer Engineering at Baylor University. Here he gives STEM folk a place in our reclamation of education. A Journal of New Ways to See... Read more
And the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Plato had a problem. A prior philosopher had presented a puzzle that had brought philosophy to an end. Science had seemed possible, after Parmenides? No. Plato solved the problem by discovering the Good God. He had always been there, of course, but Plato bumped into God and was relieved. There... Read more
Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. The children of Christmas are a spiritual family whose nursery includes every nation on the Earth. We are not known by soil, because all the cosmos is made by our Creator. We are not known by blood, because only our King was born of the will of God in blood at Bethlehem. All the rest of us are... Read more
But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name. Christmas is almost fully revealed to us on this Eleventh Day. Epiphany is day after tomorrow with further revelation: magi with gifts, baptism and John. The creator became a man and came and lived with us. We saw Him, but many of us did not know Him. Humans have withdrawn from creation and the laws... Read more
He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. Missing our own is a horrible thing to do and bitterly lonely for anyone to whom it happens. There is a group whose eyes should light up when they see us, but if when they see us they turn their backs on us, this is very hard to bear. If this has ever happened to you, know that Jesus knows just how you feel. If we have ever done... Read more
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