By Chris McCaffery He has the repose of a mind which lives in itself, while it lives in the world, and which has resources for its happiness at home when it cannot go abroad. He has a gift which serves him in public, and supports him in retirement, without which good fortune is but vulgar, and with which failure and disappointment have a charm. —John … Continue reading Irony Part III—To Celebrate a Feast: Learning to See and Learning in Order to See

By Stacey Egger It is one of the beauties of a human being that he cannot construct his interior—his thoughts, memories, convictions, feelings—in a way that is detached from the world and the people around him. Artistic and intellectual influences facilitate, speed, and color an individual’s coming-to-know, and they are one of the most natural and effective ways to communicate knowledge to others. We like … Continue reading Taste and Community Part II—Charity through Translation: The Community of Taste

By Jo Kroeker and Colin Wilson A truncated version of this piece appeared in the Hillsdale Collegian, 17 March 2016. Fol­lowing a botched cir­cum­cision at seven months, David Reimer, born “Bruce” Reimer, underwent two sex reas­signment surgeries. The first occurred at 22 months, when “Bruce” became “Brenda” because doctors thought he would be more likely to succeed as a woman than as a man with … Continue reading Human Beings, Being Gendered: Understanding personhood in light of stereotypes

By Emily Lehman The beginning of Daylight Savings Time left me meditating sleepily on what “time” means in modern America. What does it mean to “save daylight,” exactly? Do we have daylight to save? More importantly, do we save any by a perverse practice of waking up an hour earlier once a year? The answer to the last question is no. The answers to the … Continue reading The Future Doesn’t Exist (And Why You Think It Does)

By Mark Naida I closed the hymnal. While the parishioners around me sang an unobjectionable hymn after communion, I tried to pray. The words came quietly as they slipped through the interlaced fingers that held my bowed head—“Been traveling these wide roads for so long / my heart’s been far from you.” I could feel my heart beating. I could feel the baptismal font pulsing … Continue reading A Heartening: The Unrecognized Christian Vision of Leon Bridges

By Timothy Troutner At least from ancient times up to a certain time in the [Japanese] medieval period, there was a boundary beyond which humans should not enter. Within this boundary was our territory, so we ruled it as the humans’ world with our rules, but beyond this road, we couldn’t do anything even if a crime had been committed, since it was no longer … Continue reading Finding a Home in the Enchanted Forest: Hayao Miyazaki’s Humane Environmentalism