friendship 32

Friendship is a fulfillment of our nature: the recognition that loving another for their own sake is, paradoxically, itself essential to our own flourishing.

Those who had previously greeted me with smiles and handshakes find ways to hint through word and deed that I am no longer one of them ...

Why does our relationship with technology seem so unhealthy?

America has a crisis of friendship

"Is Christianity only politically efficacious in helping us determine who are our friends and who are our enemies?"

love is the most powerful force in the world.

To love and learn from each other in our communities is what good gossiping accomplishes.

Perhaps Pippin is right, but none of the friends call Fredegar Fatty anymore, and those chaps know something about heroics.

If we fail to recognize friendship for what it is, and for the role it plays in the maturation process of children and young adults, we lose out on a…

Friendship is, in fact, a vital key to any flourishing political order, for friendship is rooted in affection and a commitment to the good of the friend, which translates in…

The difference a pen pal can make

As someone who squirms every time I see a couple or family all quietly tapping their cell phones, a room of twenty people talking is a beautiful sight. It is…

I guess that paradox is what intrigues me about Carry and Dale’s differing personal constitutions and methodologies. I see them appealing to all of us in different ways—whether we have…

There is a significant difference between staring at a computer screen and seeing the world through a porch screen. Hailey emphasizes the benefits of seeing from the “threshold between stability…

Immortality might not last forever. But I contend that Ed will—through his words and through the lives of those he touched with his generosity and his grace. All of which…

As the late historian John Lukacs would insist, all stories as we know them and retell them are remembered. This means they are, inherently, personal. John Berryman and Robert Giroux:…

When I became a Washington, D.C. newsroom intern, Twitter usage was mandatory (primarily so that we could help run the magazine’s Twitter account). I neither understood nor liked Twitter at…

During a class I was teaching at our parish last fall, a woman pulled me aside afterwards to ask a question. The woman was visibly upset, with tears running down…

My piece at Ethika Politika: Aristotle's Key to Christmas

“Surely he should keep a remembrance of their former intimacy…” Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics Sometimes it feels like Aristotle foresaw all the vicissitudes of my life. He muses regarding the issue…

This is what we all need now: a deep belly-laugh.

He was looking at me with what appeared to be some degree of disbelief.

But, as Shakespeare wrote, we sometimes “by indirections find directions out.”

Several times lately I’ve opened my email and found notices about people who want to friend me, but I don’t think that means they want to befriend me. Thanks to…