All sacred relationships are formed in the crucible of inconvenience. Family. Marriage. Lifelong friendship. Religious community. None of it is convenient. Shoot, not even book clubs or bowling leagues are convenient. It’s no coincidence that our culture is coming to view them as increasingly unnecessary. A truly radical transformation in what we mean by “society” and how we experience others is already underway.
-
-
“Eyes on the Construction Site”
⎺Original Poetry from John Grey
-
Undone, Redone, Repeat: Reflections on Motherhood
I didn’t know how unprepared for motherhood I was. The nine months spent waiting for my first baby were so magical that it never occurred to me that the business of raising children would be so uprooting.
-
The Pascal Homily of St. John Chrysostom
c. 400 A.D. Are there any who are devout lovers of God?Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival! Are there any who are grateful servants?Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord!Are there any weary with fasting?Let them now receive their wages! If any have toiled from the first hour,let them receive their due reward;If any have come after the third hour,let him with gratitude join in the Feast!And he that arrived after the sixth hour,let him not doubt; for he too shall sustain no loss.And if any delayed until the ninth hour,let him not hesitate; but let him come too.And he who arrived only at the…
-
Three Poems
⎺ Original Poetry from Dietrich Balsbaugh
-
Guardini on the Anticipation of Returning
Do you think of the afternoon on the edge of the forest where the buzzards had their nest? They glided off into the blue distance. The eye focused on their circlings. The inner life was concentrated upon the eye and crarried aloft by the force of the clear and soaring power; our whole being had a vision of the fullness of space. In the far distance the mountain ranges rose up in clear outline, and behind them the land that I had not seen for twenty years was waiting. I realized that if I now went back there as a man it would mean a great deal for me.
-
Dostoyevsky on Isolation
To transform the world, to recreate it afresh, men must turn into another path psychologically. Until you have become really, in actual fact, a brother to every one, brotherhood will not come to pass. No sort of scientific teaching, no kind of common interest, will ever teach men to share property and privileges with equal consideration for all. Every one will think his share too small and they will be always envying, complaining and attacking one another. You ask when it will come to pass; it will come to pass, but first we have to go through the period of isolation.
-
Frederic Harrison on Great Books and Little Books
Whether our neglect of the great books comes from our not reading at all, or from an incorrigible habit of reading the little books, it ends in just the same thing.
-
Mill on the Recognition of Sin
Orthodox Christians who are tempted to think that those who stoned to death the first martyrs must have been worse men than they themselves are ought to remember that one of those persecutors was St. Paul.
