Belonging to the Garden
I belong to this place—if not for the next thousand years, at least for the summer. In such a displaced age, even that has to mean something.
Straw Men and the Possibility of Community in Modernity
Between these extremes, however, is free choice within reasonable limits, which I believe makes the value of community and its deliberative fruits still possible, even within the reality of the fractured and deracinated world in which we are living.
At Home with James Matthew Wilson
However, in St. Thomas and the Forbidden Birds, James Matthew Wilson shows that the seeds of a rebirth of civilization are to be planted and nurtured in the soil of everyday life.
Searching for The Thing: A Review of The Thing That Would...
While she relates the years of kaleidoscopic confusion, she provides waypoints to keep the reader grounded: “This is where we are, and this is where we’re going.”
Nadya Williams and The Good News
Williams reminds us of a lesson that we should have already learned good and hard, namely that rejection of Christianity does not result in blissful liberation and self-expression.
Step Off the Assembly Line and Take Up the Work of...
So whatever value motherhood gets assigned on earth, it’s pretty clear what position it holds on high. You may feel invisible here, but you certainly aren’t in Heaven.
A Homeward Calling: Review of Tony Woodlief’s We Shall Not All Sleep
One of the novel’s achievements is the way that it unfolds this centuries-long story with both clarity and subtlety, establishing a clear feel for right and wrong while casting no irreproachable heroes and very few villains.
The White Whale and the Problem of Grasping
Perhaps that’s the lesson at the heart of both The Master and His Emissary and Moby-Dick: when we adopt a utilitarian posture of domination over the world, we misapprehend it.
Wheeler Catlett’s Love Beyond Organization in Wendell Berry’s “Fidelity”
Organized community events bring people together and are an integral part of forging strong communal bonds in a place. Like the law, they serve a purpose in a community’s ecosystem of relationships.
The Art of Good Gossip: Unexpected Lessons about Virtue and Community...
To love and learn from each other in our communities is what good gossiping accomplishes.