Glenn Arbery Archives ~ Page 4 of 15 ~ The Imaginative Conservative

Passing the Dragon

By Glenn Arbery|2023-02-25T14:17:06-06:00February 25th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Christianity, Glenn Arbery, Lent, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

“The dragon sits by the side of the road, watching those who pass," St. Cyril warned. "Beware lest he devour you. We go to the Father of Souls, but it is necessary to pass by the dragon.” Lent is not an occasion to pass the dragon, but to prepare for the confrontation. In the first [...]

Judge Not

By Glenn Arbery|2023-02-17T16:57:04-06:00February 17th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Glenn Arbery, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

To most of the world outside the Church, a controversy over a brief part of the Mass will seem absurd, especially since it is called “the sign of peace.” My column last week, “The Snub of Peace,” drew more substantial direct responses from people on our mailing list that anything else I’ve written, and the republication [...]

The Snub of Peace

By Glenn Arbery|2023-02-10T16:53:32-06:00February 10th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Glenn Arbery, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

After all these years, I am still sometimes taken aback when someone in church refuses the sign of peace. Converts to Catholicism, as everyone knows, bring a fresh perspective to the experience of the Church. Going to confession is new and harrowing and liberating in ways that a “cradle Catholic” might not quite appreciate. Participating [...]

Reason for Hope

By Glenn Arbery|2023-02-04T11:36:52-06:00February 4th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Glenn Arbery, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

When I think of what our graduates will do, I mentally pose a question for those out in the greater world who are in the position to make choices. What kind of person do you want for your business or your school? Sometimes it strikes me that what we do at Wyoming Catholic College — [...]

Live Your Best Life!

By Glenn Arbery|2023-08-27T13:22:16-05:00January 27th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Christianity, Glenn Arbery, Sainthood, Senior Contributors, St. Augustine, Wyoming Catholic College|

Why is St. Augustine’s conviction of his own sinfulness the true path? Because he acknowledges that his misery is his own fault—in other words, that he had real agency in his turn away from what was truly good and beautiful. A few days ago, I happened upon a review of Deepak Chopra’s latest book, Living [...]

The Necessary Island

By Glenn Arbery|2023-01-21T10:44:55-06:00January 21st, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Glenn Arbery, Liberal Arts, Liberal Learning, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

The end of a liberal education should not be escape from the corrupt contemporary world or the achievement of a purity that increasingly excludes others, but rather the cultural incarnation of the Word in our own time and our own history. Almost fifteen years ago, my wife and I took a trip to Ireland—part vacation, [...]

Pull Down Thy Vanity

By Glenn Arbery|2022-12-17T17:06:00-06:00December 17th, 2022|Categories: Advent, Character, Christian Living, Christianity, Conservatism, Glenn Arbery, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays, Virtue, Wyoming Catholic College|

This Advent season does not center on our achievement; it is not the time of puffing ourselves up, but of waiting for God to reveal, as only God can, the new thing under the sun that breaks the great cycle of vanity. The greatest things are born from humility. There is something essentially comic about [...]

A Patient Madness

By Glenn Arbery|2022-12-02T13:45:06-06:00December 2nd, 2022|Categories: Advent, Catholicism, Christianity, Glenn Arbery, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

As our culture seems increasingly to reject its own hard-earned wisdom, it is good to remember that we wait in hope. It was disconcerting this week, reading Plato’s Phaedrus with my section of freshman at Wyoming Catholic College, to realize once again that the sophisticated Athenian world of the 4th Century BC was a glittering [...]

Advent in Uncertain Times

By Glenn Arbery|2023-12-25T10:02:09-06:00November 26th, 2022|Categories: Advent, Christianity, Christmas, Glenn Arbery, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays, Wyoming Catholic College|

In these uncertain times, we are constantly being urged to historicize Christ, as though He were merely a symbolic figure in a moribund and culturally discredited system of thought. But Advent reminds us of the deep promise of the Nicene Creed. He was, He is, and He is to come. In this Advent, we await [...]

Thanksgiving and the King

By Glenn Arbery|2022-11-23T19:16:40-06:00November 23rd, 2022|Categories: Catholicism, Christianity, Glenn Arbery, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

In this age of irreverence, we have much to recover, and we cannot achieve that recovery without the hard work of self-mastery in the outdoors and the classroom, but especially without worship of the true teacher, who is Christ the King. This past Sunday, Catholics across the world celebrated The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus [...]

The Suffered Past

By Glenn Arbery|2022-11-14T07:59:20-06:00November 13th, 2022|Categories: Classical Learning, Glenn Arbery, History, Liberal Learning, Literature, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

“How is this relevant?” someone might ask about some venerable work from the tradition, such as the Aeneid or King Lear or Aristotle's De Anima. The one doing the asking might seem to be in possession of a burning truth about the uniqueness of the present moment, but the more we commit the past to [...]

Sweet Reason and the Spirits of Contention

By Glenn Arbery|2022-11-04T13:27:15-05:00November 4th, 2022|Categories: Catholicism, Civil Society, Democracy, Glenn Arbery, Politics, Wyoming Catholic College|

A radical polarization is going on in our own day. Knowing better, people interpret others as short-sighted and selfish, demonize their affiliations, and tar them with imputed evil. The hard question facing us is a political one: how long will we be able to sustain our constitutional forms? The still harder question, though, is what [...]

The Paradox of Courage

By Glenn Arbery|2022-11-01T14:49:54-05:00November 1st, 2022|Categories: Character, Education, Glenn Arbery, Great Books, History, Humanities, Timeless Essays, Virtue|

What does courage actually look like? Why is it that many who can face mortal dangers in battle lack the other virtues? How do you account for a man like Cicero, whose voice trembled at the beginning of every speech and who never distinguished himself in battle, yet who stood up to Catiline and saved [...]

Modesty and the Bashful Beggar

By Glenn Arbery|2022-10-28T17:28:41-05:00October 28th, 2022|Categories: Catholicism, Glenn Arbery, Liberal Learning, Senior Contributors, Western Civilization, Wyoming Catholic College|

Hidden behind our need for financial support is the profound reality of what our college's education confers upon our students—the tradition that has formed the greatness of the Western world, the great questions, the faith enduring for 2000 years through many different cultures and regimes. The great heritage of our civilization has been imperiled, and [...]