Remembering Loss Together: A Review of The Meaning of Mourning
The need to reconcile with one’s finitude and live as good a life in light of this was made clear by many of the more successful essays and tallied with my own experience of coming to terms with the limits on my life from my condition, both in an everyday and an ultimate sense.
Augustine, Vodolazkin, and Christian Visions of Past and Future
Vodolazkin’s critical vision of the Medieval Russian past is no different in essence from Augustine’s similarly sharp and un-glamorous vision of Roman history.
Fatherhood: The Toughest Job You’ll Ever Love
Fertility rates are low. After going through the pregnancy of our first child, I’m surprised they aren’t lower. Many young people lack the “why” to endure the cultural pessimism around childrearing.
Deeper than Religion, with Powys and Chesterton
Instead of opposing one religion to another, we need the conscience and that humorous raised eyebrow, which Powys described, with feminine overtones, as “that withdrawn, quizzical look which conscience, that tough customer, regards as an invasion of its preserves,” to rend the veil in all of our religious temples: cultural/educational, economic and political.
Amish Imagination
The truth is, the Amish have had to adapt and innovate and negotiate the changing world. The truth is, the Amish are a people of imagination. Perhaps not “imagination” as popularly conceived but imagination nevertheless.
The County Meeting
We will speak to gatherings of farmers in seventeen different counties throughout southern Georgia. Along the way we will travel 1750 miles.
On Latimer, Localism, Liberalism, and Democracy
Wichita, KS. Trevor Latimer’s Small Isn’t Beautiful: The Case Against Localism deeply engaged me, but not in a positive way, at least not initially....
Localism as a Form of Government, or Localism as a Way...
Consider that here at FPR we are at least as concerned with cultural issues as with political ones. If we are being honest, many of us are probably more concerned with the former than with the latter.
Local Stories, National Character
We always have been an unruly people, from the very beginning. It is a fact that gives us hope that our current disagreements and fights are not signs of our democracy’s weakness but its enduring strength.
Learning through Language: Education and Electronic Media
The best educators (and the best educational institutions) will neither embrace nor eschew the electronic technologies that commercial forces wish to prevail in higher education; rather they will assess each one, in light of both its assets and its liabilities, employing those that are superior to other tools, while not employing those that are not.