Jul 7th, 2008 by admin
As we seek to spread Democracy we would do well to remember these words of Edmund Burke:
The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.
Jun 12th, 2008 by admin
Father Mychal Judge
Lord. take me where you want me to go;
Let me meet who you want me to meet;
Tell me what you want me to say;
and
Keep me out of your way.
- Mychal Judge was a Roman Catholic Priest, Chaplain for the New York Fire Department, and the officially recorded first victim of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
“And what,” one may ask, “is this to His disciples, who were on every account humble? For in truth they had nothing to be proud of, being fishermen, poor, ignoble, and illiterate.” Even though these things concerned not His disciples, yet surely they concerned such as were then present, and such as were hereafter to receive the disciples, lest they should on this account despise them. But it were truer to say that they did also concern His disciples. For even if not then, yet by and by they were sure to require this help, after their signs and wonders, and their honor from the world, and their confidence towards God. For neither wealth, nor power, nor royalty itself, had so much power to exalt men, as the things which they possessed in all fullness. And besides, it was natural that even before the signs they might be lifted up, at that very time when they saw the multitude, and all that audience surrounding their Master; they might feel some human weakness. Wherefore He at once represses their pride.
And He doth not introduce what He saith by way of advice or of commandments, but by way of blessing, so making His word less burthensome, and opening to all the course of His discipline. For He said not, “This or that person,” but “they who do so, are all of them blessed.” So that though thou be a slave, a beggar, in poverty, a stranger, unlearned, there is nothing to hinder thee from being blessed, if thou emulate this virtue.
May 27th, 2008 by admin
Oscar Wilde
It is only an auctioneer that should admire all schools of art.
May 27th, 2008 by admin
Seamus Heaney
I can’t think of a case where poems changed the world, but what they do is they change people’s understanding of what’s going on in the world.
Mar 30th, 2008 by admin
A thought provoking essay and blog post for everyone with a facebook, myspace, or blog account:
The implications of the narcissistic and exhibitionistic tendencies of social networkers also cry out for further consideration. There are opportunity costs when we spend so much time carefully grooming ourselves online. Given how much time we already devote to entertaining ourselves with technology, it is at least worth asking if the time we spend on social networking sites is well spent. In investing so much energy into improving how we present ourselves online, are we missing chances to genuinely improve ourselves? Read the entire essay here.
The other reason I feel right about making my time with Facebook just a visit is a little harder to explain. How do I put this? I found that it encouraged me to think about me even more than I already do–which is admittedly already quite a bit. Does that make any sense? Without any help from the internet I’m inclined to give way too much time to evaluating myself, thinking about myself and wondering what other people think of me. If that egocentrism is a little flame, than Facebook for me is a gasoline IV feeding the fire. I need to grow in self-forgetfulness. I need to worry more about what God is thinking of me. I need to be preoccupied with what he’s written in his word, not what somebody just wrote on my “wall.” From Josh Harris’ My One and Only Week on Facebook.
Mar 28th, 2008 by admin
Perhaps my posting of this contradicts with the last post. Hopefully not. The truth is none of us are what we seem. Better yet, none of us are how we portray ourselves, how we want to be seen. Russell Moore’s (Southern Seminary, SBC) review of a recent Charles Shultz biography highlights the fact that while we all hide our worst from others, at times we also hide the best.
You may read the review here.
Mar 17th, 2008 by admin
It is easier to speak ill of a person once they leave the room. It is even easier to disparage another after they are dead. Whether it stems from fear, love, or respect we give deference to the living that we do not give to the deceased. This, according to Joseph Bottum, in the March 2008, edition of First Things, is a “moral failure.”
Bottum’s essay, The Judgment of Memory, uses a contrast of memoir styles to make this point. While early to mid twentieth century autobiographies tended toward the sentimental, the more recent approach for self-historians is to pick apart their upbringing as they look for the root cause of their every failing.
The device may have grown from the Divorce Generation’s nostalgia for what might have been, if only mom and dad would have stayed together. It might stem from pop psychology’s emphasis on self-esteem in the 80’s and 90’s -we are so good that any failings must be someone else’s fault. Whatever the cause, it is the old game of blame shifting. And, however accurate the claims may be, it still remains that though “a few human beings truly have been damaged irrevocably by their childhoods . . . a rule might be posited for the vast majority of us: At fifteen, we get to blame our parents for the way we are; at thirty, there’s no one to blame but ourselves.”
The necessity of honoring our fathers and mothers extends beyond the grave. There is something ill about speaking ill of the dead. Especially, when the disparagement is used to recast ourselves in a better light. The dead are not here to defend their actions, to deflect harshness with a glance or a touch, or to grow from our rebukes. “If love is true-that is to say, a true thing: a really existing object to which the universe itself must bend - then there remains a place for reticence, and secrets swallowed, and the dead allowed to keep their darkness to themselves.”
Good advice, this. Whether the dead be our parents, saints of old, or historical figures let us approach them with respect. Let critique also be accompanied by charity. Choose the favorable reading of their works and lives. And, hope our children will do the same.
Still trying to recover my old posts, my backup files were corrupted in a recent host transfer.
Mar 2nd, 2008 by admin
Guy De Maupassant self-penned epitaph: “I have coveted everything and taken pleasure in nothing.”