The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s “own,” or “real” life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life – the life God is sending one day by day: what one calls one’s “real life” is […]
Blessings of a Life Interrupted Read More »
On a whim I picked up a couple of books on Katherine of Aragon at a recent library sale. I found myself quickly fascinated with this woman who is so often overshadowed by her replacement, Anne Boleyn. In particular I was intrigued by the rigorous classical education she received. Much is made about how well
Surprising Thoughts on Female Education from the Middle Ages Read More »
In his classic work, Economics in One Lesson, New Deal-era economist Henry Hazlitt critiques modern liberal economic theory. His analysis is interesting and extremely relevant to the current debate surrounding our own economic crisis. Why do the liberal economists win the day? How do they succeed in convincing people that government intervention in the economy
Is a Lack of Imagination Contributing to Our Economic Woes? Read More »
Les Misérables (musical) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) I haven’t seen Les Mis, the film, and I’m not sure that I will. Both the novel and the musical hold very special places in my heart, and I am generally cautious about viewing film versions of stories I love. It has too often been a disappointing and disheartening
Cinematic Realism: Not a Les Mis Film Review Read More »
Watching the SEC championship game a few weekends ago, I viewed a commercial in which the announcer assured me that bigger is better. He even implied that the statement is beyond debate: it is, he proclaimed, a self-evident fact! From mega-stores to mega-churches, we have come to believe that size equals success. In my small
The Dangers of Gargantuanism Read More »
Lady Catherine confronts Elizabeth about Darcy, on the title page of the first illustrated edition. This is the other of the first two illustrations of the novel. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) It’s easy to forget when reading a Jane Austen novel that she wrote during a time of great revolutionary upheaval: the loss of the British
Don’t Follow Your Heart: Anti-Revolutionary Lessons from Pride and Prejudice Read More »
When a culture rejects God’s standard of righteousness, it always replaces God’s law with some new law, some new standard of right and wrong. And even while mocking and despising the morality of Christianity, the high priests of the new cultural morality will enforce those new laws with a zeal surpassing religious fanatics. In our
All We Need Is Love? Read More »
Cover of William Shakespeare Charlotte Mason recommends that students read Shakespeare yearly beginning in the fourth grade as part of their liberal education. For parent-teachers intrigued and excited by this idea, the practical application seems daunting. How do we do Shakespeare in our homeschools? What does that look like? To help demystify the inclusion of
Shakespeare: A Day in the Life of My Homeschool Read More »
Where did the concept of fantasy originate? For that matter where did the concept of fiction come from? Ancient man had sacred texts, but they certainly did not consider them “fantasy.” According to Gene Veith, it was the Bible that made fantasy possible in the first place. While the Greeks emphasized imitation, the Bible emphasized
Imago Dei and the Redemptive Power of Fantasy – Part 4 Read More »
Another common objection of our day is that fairy stories and fairy tales in particular are scary and violent and are therefore unfit for children. In the Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, Bruno Bettelheim deals with this issue at length. Bettelheim was a famous child psychologist who worked with troubled
Imago Dei and the Redemptive Power of Fantasy – Part 3 Read More »
There is no natural connection between the minds of children and fairy tales, states Tolkien. That’s the assumption of people who tend to think of children as a special kind of creature, almost a different race, rather than as normal if immature members of a particular family and of the human family at large. He
Imago Dei and the Redemptive Power of Fantasy – Part 2 Read More »
This essay was presented as an essay at the 2011 CiRCE Conference. There have been over 100 million copies of The Lord of the Rings sold. The Harry Potter series has sold 450 million copies, making it the bestselling book series in history. The last four books of that series consecutively set records as the
Imago Dei and the Redemptive Power of Fantasy – Part 1 Read More »
