If family and their funerals remind us of the duties imposed by God and Tradition, they doubly remind us of the gratitude we owe God for putting us into a world with families that not only are not perfect but do not meet our own silly notions of what they should be. The office of [...]
R.R. Reno in “Return of the Strong Gods” argues that we need a return to the pillars that represent classic human values: the home, the country, and the religion. He calls for true patriotism rather than nationalism, marriage and family instead of a sexual free-for-all, and historic Christianity instead of do-it-yourself “spirituality.” Return of the [...]
GRANDMOTHER AND GRANDSON A MOMENT TOGETHER They shared a language all their own, unspoken. He, twenty-two years young, and never a word: His world, a silence, ever still, unbroken. Yet she, ninety-four, oh, she had always heard. […]
So much and so little has transpired since I last wrote a year ago. My wife is becoming as changeful and changeless as the sea, and yet I watch her go about her life each day happier, more tolerant, less argumentative, and full of gratitude. It has been over a year since I last wrote about [...]
Europe has a suicidal tendency to ignore the problem underlying its decay: a lack of faith and families. But perhaps, in light of recent legislation in Poland and Hungary rooted in faith and family and the future, perhaps we may be seeing the sun rising in Europe’s East, even as we see it setting in [...]
There was a time, decades ago when the world was divided between those who were online and offline. Rich people could afford the shiny new gadgets that connected them with everyone. Poor people were left in an analog wasteland on the other side of the digital divide. Social justice warriors of the time demanded internet [...]
I regretted having children because children fundamentally altered my entire life in a way I never expected they would. For literally the first time in my life I was afraid of the future and unsure of what would happen next. I had willfully, foolishly, unthinkingly, given hostages to fortune. It was just the two of [...]
God suffers evil, in both senses of the word. He allows it in his sufferance and defeats it in his suffering. His eternal will is accomplished in the sufferance and suffering of the Cross, as he tells us in the words he himself utters from the Cross itself. We live in a world in which [...]
Studies confirm that traditional families result in less delinquency, criminality, illness, drug use, sexual promiscuity and stress. The best family policy is carried out by the family itself. Those who need the “family” aid offered by liberal policymakers are not truly “families.” As the next national elections loom on the horizon, many liberal candidates are [...]
What happens when our nation’s fundamental principles or standards are rejected? Jennifer Roback Morse’s new book, The Sexual State, is a lively and forceful examination of where we came from, where we are now, and where we ought to be on matters of human life… Genesis tells us that man was created “male and female.” The [...]
“Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy.” The opening words to Homer’s Odyssey are among the most famous and recognizable in Western literature. That beginning stanza captures so much of the human condition and [...]
In Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey, a Greek war hero faces imposing challenges in his long journey home. After decimating the armies of Troy, King Odysseus sets out for Ithaca only to find himself wrestling against more formidable foes. For ten years the whims of gods and the winds of fate hinder his journey, while a [...]
It is a truism that children need adults to help them grow up. It is, however, less known but equally true that adults need children to help them grow into the fullness of maturity. Whereas children need to be taught about life in all its multifarious manifestations, satisfying their natural sense of wonder and their [...]
We find joy when we lose the self in activity, in those good things that are outside ourselves: making art, doing science, playing sports, educating the young, or caring for the old and disabled. Joy is nature’s way of telling us that we are fulfilling our nature… Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords [...]