Original Poetry from Dietrich Balsbaugh
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The Phenomenology of Phineas and Ferb
They prize summer above all else. Why? It is full of potential, and unfinished narratives, embodied experience, and sensory experience with others. “Summer” becomes a stand-in for a life well-lived in the particulars. It’s making-do with the odds and ends we’ve been given, bucking convention, and rising to the occasion.
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On Liberals and Liberal Education
Recent articles of note from the world wide web.
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“Request and Variations”
Original Poetry from J.D. Smith
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Get a Clue
We went on to discover that this “clew” was a northern English and Scottish fragment of Old English cliewen which meant "sphere, ball, skein, ball of thread or yarn.” Going back even further, it appears as if this word might even go back to a common root meaning a mass of clay which also produced our modern words “glue” and “gluten.” In other words, a big ol’ ball of something. Dough? Bread? Suddenly we’re in the dark forest of Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs, that ill-fated “clew.”
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Norman Maclean on Spots of Time
Poets talk about 'spots of time,' but it is really fishermen who experience eternity compressed into a moment. No one can tell what a spot of time is until suddenly the whole world is a fish and the fish is gone.
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Laurence Sterne on the Conscience
I own, in one Case, whenever a Man's Conscience does accuse him (as it seldom errs on that Side) that he is Guilty; and, unless in melancholy and hypochondriac Cases, we may safely pronounce upon, that there is always sufficient Grounds for the Accusation. But, the Converse of the Proposition will not hold true.
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George Washington on the Fire of Partisan Spirit
There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true—and in governments of a monarchical cast patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to…
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Lewis on Theology and Christian Community
The one really adequate instrument for learning about God, is the whole Christian community, waiting for Him together.
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Judith Wolfe on Being an Isolated Protagonist in the Contemporary World
We are no longer corporeal persons in a shared space, whose relative movements affect one another, but apparitions slotted into plays or stories that are increasingly of each one's solitary imagining. The more we insist on the role of protagonist and cast others into supporting or antagonistic roles, the more we manoeuvre ourselves into competition or worse, find ourselves the only players among non-player characters in a cosmos without coordinates.
