Willis Renuart is a former attorney and restaurant owner. He lives in Akron, Ohio with his wife and three grown children and an ancient Old English Sheepdog.
The day will come when parents in the poorest communities will be able to say that they cannot imagine a better place to raise their children than in their neighborhoods surrounded by family and friends. This will not happen because government bureaucracies finally use the correct metrics and better redistribute the nation’s wealth.
Many religions understand suffering to be laden with the potential for spiritual awakening through a reduction of worldly attachments. But Christianity has a unique understanding of suffering that offers a particular kind of solace.
When enough people recognize their emasculated state and demand change through the political process, then authority and resources will be given back to the local community so that people can again be responsible for their neighbors.
Our disregard of tradition and community has left us alienated and estranged compared to more traditional societies that rely on a web of family, community, and religion.
We are limited beings distinct from God, but our earthly nature becomes beautified when it participates in the infinite. Christ’s humanity was thought to make it possible for every person to share in the divine life without ceasing to be human.
The failure to distinguish between art and beauty has caused much confusion. Art and beauty have two different but overlapping trajectories–one towards union and the other towards transcendent reality.
The dark side of religion cannot be completely vanquished because human reason pales in the comparison to the highest reality, which is known through the light and the darkness of the religious experience.
