Month: July 2021
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Face-to-Face – Without Shame or Fear
We are apparently living in the age of the face, and I don’t think it’s necessarily bad. I know all the complaints about our culture of “selfies,” and there are certainly many things in that to make us wonder, but our fascination with our faces long predates the technology of our phones. In the usage…
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The Frontier of Personhood
The word “frontier” has long been associated with certain aspects of American mythology. “Frontier Days” is short-hand for log cabins, flintlocks, and the rugged life. Occasionally it takes on aspects of the “Wild West.” In recent generations it has been moved off-planet, such that we hear Captain Kirk intone, “Space…….the final frontier.” It is also…
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God and the Mystery of the Self
St. Augustine, in his Confessions, offered this simple statement: “Noverim me, noverim te.” “If I knew myself, I should have known Thee.” There is probably no writing in the life of the early Church as “self-reflective” as Augustine’s. His Confessions have sometimes been called the first “modern” writing. They are certainly the first writing that…
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Saving Knowledge
I have often used the example of riding a bicycle as an image of knowing God. There’s no difficulty learning how to ride if you don’t mind falling off for a while. But no matter how many years you have ridden, you cannot describe for someone else how you know what you know. But you…
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Mediocrity, Envy, and Grace
The 1984 film, Amadeus, tells the story of the child genius, Mozart. IMdB describes it in this manner: The life, success and troubles of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as told by Antonio Salieri, the contemporaneous composer who was insanely jealous of Mozart’s talent and claimed to have murdered him… Mozart’s genius is so profound that it…
Thanks, Father; this is just wonderful! Your vignette about the garden center says so much about our culture and its…