OK, so older English sometimes gives us pause. What in the world does Holden Caulfield mean by this? Women kill me. They really do. I don’t mean I’m oversexed or anything like that—although I am quite sexy. I just like them, I mean. They’re always leaving their goddam bags out in the middle of the…
There is something terrifying about the future. We are afraid of the unknown, and what is less known that what has yet to even be? Nevertheless, the divine command comes to us precisely as the will of the future.
Paramore’s early “Hallelujah” has an interesting lyric at the start: Somehow everything’s going to fall—right in-to place The pause after “fall” and the lengthening of “right” add to the meaning of the line. It’s a little like: Somehow everything’s going to fall—[and if that’s the case then] let it in-to place The falling of world…
For me, a central point of apocalyptic theology is that the end reveals the beginning and the beginning reveals the end. On the one side, as the history of the world progresses toward its end, the real meaning of the beginning becomes apparent—even to the point of becoming obnoxiously obvious. Specifically, the more that the…
If you pick up the biography that the third-century Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry wrote about his teacher Plotinus, you may be struck by just how slight it is on actual facts and details. It’s less a biography and more a few personal notes.Porphyry explains that because Plotinus despised his own bodily existence–true to his philosophy–he was…
The misuse of scientific concepts within theology causes me exceptional annoyance. After all, before I suddenly switched to theology, I had intended to pursue a doctorate in physics. To be clear, this unfulfilled aspiration does not provide me with any noteworthy credentials. I cannot pretend to have the scientific expertise of, for example, the man…
My latest amusing find is from the autobiography of Charles Darwin. Often delightful in its candor, the book recounts how the young Darwin had plenty of bad habits related to his predilection for collection and cataloguing. He wasted massive stretches of time shooting birds and tracking his kills, so much so that his father sent…
Ancient pagans had no shortage of gods. In the first century, Varro categorized the Roman gods into three groups: the “certain,” the “uncertain,” and the “chosen.” The latter were the gods more specifically worshipped by Roman tradition. Yet Augustine mocks Varro’s categories with the fact that many of these so-called “chosen” gods performed such trifling…
An insightful essay by Joe D. Burchfield entitled “The Age of the Earth and the Invention of Geological Time” discusses the concepts of “geological time” and “deep time”, tracing their usage back to the influential work of Charles Lyell at the start of the nineteenth century. “Geological time” occurs frequently in works having to do…
I’ve recently been reading Thomas Malthus’s 1798 first edition of The Principle of Population because of its significance for Charles Darwin, which I mention in my draft book on evolutionary theology, Evolution and Grace. Darwin was reluctant at first to apply natural selection to humans, but in fact it was Malthus’s teaching in regard to…
So, you have to record a lecture, make it as clear as possible, and cut out that bit where you lost your train of thought and started rambling about typos in your lecture notes. What do you do? Well, you just pull up a voice recorder app on your phone… Or not. All of the…
The hero or saint, rather than serving as a guide and a model for imitation, easily becomes a kind of idol.
Even with all of the new apps for children these days, there’s very few that are actually very helpful or truly educational. Watching cartoon animals in between Candy Crush ads does not really constitute education. Older kids can learn from a variety of games, especially complex simulation games, but younger kids really don’t have much…
Even the best storycrafter shapes a tale after his or her own likeness, and yet, stories have a way of getting away from us and shaping us in return. The most powerful of these stories become cultural myths, broad-sweeping metanarratives that reinterpret reality through a particular lens. Such myths may point to a deeper truth, but…
They say that when you sing, you pray twice. I say when you show students a video, you teach twice—sometimes for half the work. Of course it has to be a good video, and those can be hard to find. Nevertheless, I recently found an excellent online resource loaded with good videos. It is called…
I recently perused an article on “The 25 things you should learn to DIY this year,” and it struck me that many of the ideas were not all that practical. For most homeowners—especially those of us with stereotypically large Catholic families—practicality and savings should be a big consideration when deciding what to do by yourself. If…
I loved math as a kid, but thanks to my wife’s diligent homeschooling, my kids are way ahead of where I was. I didn’t start learning the multiplication tables until I was 9; my 7-year-old already knows multiplication and division by heart. This success has a lot to do with a great program called Math…
As a result of poor care by the previous occupants of our house, several of our closets have suspended doors that continually fall off of the track. You merely touch the door to open it and it plops down and refuses to move. Typically, for a short-term fix I have to get into the closet,…
We parents usually have plenty of funny stories about the things kids say. Many of my favorites come from my very imaginative second child, Lucía (age 5), sometimes in concert with my oldest, Grace (age 7). Once when I was reading a bedtime story, two-year-old Lucía, exclaimed, “I want to whee-haa!” Before I could ask…
I recently hit the jackpot in terms of book ownership. A nearby religious community was purging their entire library, and I managed to pick up nearly 400 volumes of mostly rare and classic theology and philosophy books. I picked up plenty from Ratzinger, Rahner, and Newman, as well as possibly the complete works of Fulton…
Catechizing 7th graders can be a challenge, but once in a while my plans succeed. This happened recently with my activity for designing posters advertising virtues. As Catholics we have some basic theological points to cover with regard to the virtues, and this requires some memorization on the part of the students. There are the…
Hello world! We’re happy to announce the beginning of our new blog. We are Michael Anthony and Danielle Abril, and we’re both experienced with the Internet but we’ve been too busy living life to blog in recent years. Danielle once ran a great blog called clothdiapertales.com back when we only had one kid to chase…