Joy 7
It Ain’t Funny: Or, Why We Don’t Laugh Together
The laughter of a faithless culture is bitter, derisive. It no longer springs from a merry heart but from dry bones. A culture of faith is a culture that can…
Academic Joy
After years of research, I have developed a three-stage teaching method that breaks new ground in pedagogical theory: Stage 1: Pay attention. Stage 2: Be astonished. Stage 3: Tell about…
The Only Way is Up
It is a terrifying responsibility every single day, for a preschooler’s capacity to find ever creative ways to put herself in danger does not always match up with the parent’s…
Who is Tom Bombadil? In Search of the “One-Answer-To-Rule-Them-All”
Wiley, throughout his book, handles the paradoxes and tensions of Tolkien’s text not as inconsistencies to be brushed aside, but rather as brushstrokes of a master artist at work. For…
Substitution and Exchange
If such substitution and exchange were genuinely possible, would we agree with Lewis that no gift was more gladly given? Would we too readily assume we could bear another’s burden…
Finding Joy in Intentional Community
Intentional community stands as a powerful rebuke to the modern pursuit of the good life: it is not by restlessly seeking to improve our circumstances, but by committing ourselves to…
Joyless Moderns
The modern age, in almost every detail, began with the flat rejection of joy. And the modern condition consists in alternately lamenting that there is nothing in which to take…