Life entails taking risks. The failure to see that seems to be behind the readiness of so many adults in our society to accept what seem to me to be criminal limitations on our economic and social freedoms in the name of security. If there is anything I do not wish to write about anymore, [...]
The most exciting piece of punctuation is the period. It marks strong assertions of fact or opinion and gives the reader a pause to digest them and decide whether to affirm, deny, or leave them hanging till later evidence comes in, from the following sentences or other sources. We could use a lot more sentences [...]
Until our elected officials, media, and “activists” stop rendering sentences on the basis of assumed verdicts garnered from piecing together a few time-bound, one-sided video clips and a truckload of assumptions about a “racist” or “white supremacist” country, we will not wake up from an increasingly horrific national nightmare for Americans of every race, creed, [...]
The idea that a second lockdown, more severe than the first and on a national basis, would not cause more damage than it prevents is sheer fantasy. COVID poses health risks to a particular portion of the population. Lockdowns pose a risk to everybody—both economically and physically. Many people have talked about the death of [...]
The battle for civilization requires knowledge of what is at its roots. Our digital culture is good for providing access, though of a precarious kind, to such knowledge. The battle also requires, however, habits of reading, listening, watching, thinking, and reflecting that are cultivated best in a non-digital environment. We are in a cold civil [...]
James Gray’s 2019 film “Ad Astra” is science fiction at its best: a window not into technology and life in the future, but a reflection on what is enduring in human life. And it is the brokenness of humans, particularly of men whose fathers are absent, that is the true story here. Every man has [...]
Life is a kind of hike. Preparation is good, but you cannot be totally prepared. Unexpected beauty comes with unexpected difficulty. And the joy that you encounter is inextricable from the difficulty and even danger of the experience—even when you were promised an “easy” time. I have made no secret of my disdain for the [...]
It really did not matter that Fr. Daniel Moloney’s letter, which condemned police brutality and any kind of racism, was a model of balance and a call for all people to seek mercy, justice, and reconciliation. What mattered was that he had not repeated the dogmatic utterances of a secular religion. He had to be [...]
There is no safety in silence today. This is a blessing in a way. If you know you cannot stay silent, you now are faced with a choice. Will I speak the truth as best I can see it or simply join in the shouting of the crowd? Silence is golden. Only, however, if it [...]
We have an obligation, it seems, not only to long for the recovery of the unspeakable loveliness that has come and gone when time will be no more, but to recognize it when it is passing and to speak of it to ourselves and others. In Alice Thomas Ellis’s “A Welsh Childhood,” we see nostalgia [...]
I want the politicians, academics, corporate flacks, and journalists who are willing to celebrate somebody else’s bacon being fried in the name of flattened curves, new forestation, and utopian revolutionary dreams to stop and think about what they are doing. Don’t cry “burn it down” unless you are willing to stand in the ashes of [...]
Before entering the workforce or making a huge investment in their education, high school seniors are craving a clear, practical understanding of economics and government. Russell Kirk provides both in “The American Cause” and “Economics: Work and Prosperity.” What should high school students be reading? Many of us believe that great texts are essential to [...]
Many of us who work in higher education are aware that we are working on boats that are not only “academically adrift,” but which have been leaking furiously for years. Given the demographics and the broader economic devastation wrought by our foolish response to the Coronavirus, it is unlikely that even a bailout will allow [...]
The Saint Brendan of Frederick Buechner’s novel is like all the saints who learn that the greatest journey is one that leads from the glorious but seed-like natural energy and strength of youth, to the final flowering of spiritual life and power that are only attained through prayer, surrender, and many crosses. For Roman Catholics, [...]