“It would be so nice if something made sense for a change.” Alice…in Wonderland
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Trading wisdom for youth
This year we’re studying ancient history and literature. In my opinion, combining the subjects is the only way to study any history or most literature: It gives you context for your literature and heart for your history. Now you only need a brain and your all set. Who needs courage? I digress. We are currently […]
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Fixated
Anyone who has kids knows they have a tendency to fixate on certain things. And I don’t know if it’s all boys or just my boys, but they can fixate much more intensely and persistently than my daughters ever did. (They also are distracted at the drop of the hat. That’s the parenting paradox for […]
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Being neighborly
*A caveat: this post is as much as a “preaching to myself” challenge as it is a complaint about the current state of affairs. I need to be a better neighbor as much as anyone. Single mom Debra Harrell let’s her nine-year-old daughter play in a nearby park while she worked her shifts at McDonalds […]
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Brazen and crass
Some of the most fascinating videos on the web come from Russian dash cams. Almost everyone in Russia has dash cams, and the reason is because of massive insurance fraud (from both consumer and insurance company) and lax and corrupt law enforcement. The idea of recording every moment of my life, or even just of […]
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Teaching my kids to fail
This weekend I listened to a Freakanomics podcast on embracing failure or even the potential to fail. One of the stories they told was the explosion of the Challenger. I was in 6th grade, and I remember that day clearly. We weren’t watching the launch, but a teacher ran down the hall yelling for other teachers […]
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People are people
I know that sounds very obvious, but I’ve been thinking a great deal (for a number of different reasons and in different circumstances) about Charlotte Mason’s wonderful observations, “Children are born people.” My reading today in A Year with C.S. Lewis(af) is from one of my favorite essays (in my favorite collection of essays) […]
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Right, wrong, and certainty
From time to time, I ask myself this question: “What am I wrong about?” I have decided, for example, that I am wrong about insisting sentences not end with prepositions. This is a difficult, if not impossible, question to answer. Because if I knew what I was wrong about, I’d change my belief to the […]
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The danger of truth
“Now we have found common ground to stand on. Establish the facts, no matter what comes of it.” “On that ground, Lord Peter,” said the Warden, “your inquisitiveness becomes a principle. And a very dangerous one.” Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night One of the themes of Gaudy Night is fidelity to the truth, whatever the consequences. […]
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Life lesson
It’s important to be able to say, “I don’t know.” Moreover, it’s important to say, “I don’t know” and then leave it at that. While often that phrase launches a search for knowledge, it doesn’t always have to. We can just not know something. We can be okay with unanswered questions and “gaps” in our […]
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Preparation for a new day
From today Table Talk devotional: “[S]in often takes things that the law says are good in themselves and deceives us into making them ultimate goods, that is idols. If we rest all our hope in achieving something that the law says is good — obedient children, a good name, and so forth — we might […]
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