Love Is Its Own Justification: Wendell Berry and the Lure of...
Scialabba insists that our actions are meritorious and good if they are effective, if they transform society and lead to measurable improvements. Berry, on the other hand, upholds love as its own standard: human lives are good insofar as they participate in divine love’s redemptive work.
It’s a Wonderful Film
It wasn’t enough for George to stay in Bedford Falls and do the right thing; he needed to choose which values to embrace and which to reject.
Pancakes with My Father
My father cried the day his stroke began, as he lay in the emergency ward, watching himself lose his speech and his strength. He cried the day after the stroke receded when my mother and I came to see him, as he looked at us looking at the wreckage.
The Local Barber
I recently visited a barber in my Virginian hometown whom I had not patronized in more than a year (I’d taken to getting my...
Happy 60th, Bill Kauffman
". . . among the keenest minds in contemporary American letters." ---Allan Carlson
Last Rites for Local Parishes: On the Decline of Catholic Chicago
A church that prides itself on its universality—its catholicity—has served as a seedbed for hundreds of parishes divided along ethnic lines.
The Temptation of Minimalism and Excess: A Simple Home in an...
In the discussion of minimalism, I want to suggest it’s less about what’s in your home than what your home is used for. It’s not what you don’t have in your home, but the people you do. It’s not the values you say you believe, but your disposition towards your neighbor and to things.
The Foreign Mystique
If we learn about ourselves and our homes through travel, we don’t just become better “citizens of the world”—we can become more conscious and thoughtful citizens of our own places.
Fore-Deck as Front Porch
Where do the porchers from across the Pond go to escape the entrapment of a modern, concrete, urban sprawl?