The English language is a minefield of buried metaphors. Take “buried metaphor,” for instance. Standard dictionary definitions treat the phrase as an abstract term, defining “buried metaphor” as a word or phrase that, though originally intended as a figure of speech, has been used so frequently that it now represents a specific concept without the […]
For as long as I remember, I have turned to words to bestow names, and through them meaning, on my experiences. Yet for the past five weeks, since the birth of our first child, this chain of significance seems reversed: in every day with our baby boy, new experiences uncover treasures of meaning in words
Along with the treasuries of church liturgies, sacred music, special meals, and supremely, Scripture’s Passion narratives, poetry can aid the remembrance and contemplation we seek during the high days of Holy Week. This will be the first of several poem postings offered as Holy Week meditations, each including a brief guide to the poem before
“This Soul Bread Take”: A Poem for Maundy Thursday Read More »
Because the Quality of Your Metaphors Determines the Quality of Your Thinking
3 Dangerous Metaphors for Education You Should Avoid Read More »
I’ve been reading in the gospel of Matthew recently, and I just went through the passages where Jesus has been using parables to teach the people. At one point Jesus’ disciples ask him (I imagine in a somewhat bewildered tone) why he is speaking to the people in parables. Jesus gives a mysterious answer that
On Parables, Metaphors, and the True Joy of the Father Read More »
AFTER APPLE PICKING, BY ROBERT FROST MY long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree Toward heaven still, And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill Beside it, and there may be two or three Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough. 5 But I am done with apple-picking now. Essence of winter sleep is on
POTW: Robert Frost and the Importance of Metaphor Read More »
A Footnote to All Prayers by C.S. Lewis He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow. When I attempt the ineffable name, murmuring Thou, And dream of Phaedian fancies and embrace in heart Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art. Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme,
POTW: CS Lewis, Limping Metaphors, and Groanings Too Deep For Words Read More »
I enjoyed this: “We live by metaphor, even if we are not given to translating into words those complex combinations of emotions and the sensuous information our brains accumulate. The fine lyric poet reveals metaphors to us not as the baubles and decorative exempla of argument, but as the source and origin, the power before
