The imagination is a gift from God, given in His own image, to conceive of a Glorious Reality that does exist, that we cannot yet fully see. Why is a sentence from C.S. Lewis delightful while an equally true statement by another, ordinary writer, is not? “I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun [...]
Please join Peter Kalkavage as he discusses the metaphysics of music: music's role in the liberal arts, the paradox in the union of rational and irrational, order and feeling in its composition, and music's connection and reflection of the deeper order of the natural world, of being. Introduction: In this podcast, we hear from Peter [...]
Fine art does not set out to entertain. Instead, fine art seeks to summon one to worship, for contemplation of God’s control, authority, and presence is indeed worship… Before the world was digitized and messaging was made instant via the ubiquity of supercomputers carried in each person’s pocket or purse, written communication was facilitated by [...]
The music of Michael Kurek is rooted in the past, and his own guiding philosophy is rooted in a love for the transcendent, triune splendor of the good, the true, and the beautiful, a love which is itself a fruit of his Christian faith. Michael Kurek As editor for the past sixteen years [...]
Cultural decadence is all around us, and there is a siren call to submission. But such submission is not worthy of a free people, and we must respond with wonder and beauty, truth and goodness, philosophy and rhetoric. For those of us convinced that ours is a moment of profound decadence, it quite naturally occurs [...]
Without defending the citadel of the mind, how can we build a beautiful city? Without the conviction of true propositions, whence do we think beauty will come?… In Conversations with Roger Scruton (2016), Mark Dooley engages in a fascinating book-length interview with the famous English philosopher. While best known academically for unfashionable arguments on behalf [...]
To arrive at a solution even in the political problem, the road of aesthetics must be pursued, because it is through beauty that we arrive at freedom… But I might perhaps make a better use of the opening you afford me if I were to direct your mind to a loftier theme than that of [...]
"The presence that rose thus so strangely beside the waters, is expressive of what in the ways of a thousand years men had come to desire. Hers is the head upon which all "the ends of the world are come," and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out from within [...]
Modern man thinks poetry a waste of time. He doesn’t know the difference between that which takes time and that which wastes it… What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where [...]
"When I listen to his music, it is as if I am doing a good deed. It is difficult to convey what exactly his beneficial influence on me consists of, but it is undoubtedly beneficial, and the longer I live, the closer I get to know him, the more I love him." Unlike most composers [...]
The humanities can fill us with a kind of reverent admiration for a place in its particularity, and fill us with a delight that such a thing exists, untouched, un-owned by us. It can help us open our grasping hands and let beauty be, whether or not it is possessed by me… I would like [...]
The language of beauty is universal. It transcends all cultures, socio-economic divisions, and educational divides. By being appreciated by everyone, the language of beauty unites everyone… It has been my privilege to lead our parish in building a beautiful new Catholic church in Greenville, South Carolina. Designed in the Romanesque style, it features salvaged stained [...]
Surely, there will be composers who will once again build upon the past and upon each other’s work, creating beautiful new melodies and nobly redefined forms. Eventually, a genius will appear who, like Mozart, will owe almost everything to those who went before him. In each nation of importance for Western music during the first [...]
My list of pet peeves is short, and it runs like this: traffic, small dogs, and shopping. Fate has ruled that I shall always dislike these three things, and there’s no help for it. But for now, I want to focus only on the last one. Though I’ve spent my whole life ignoring clothing stores, [...]