Here is my second post of mostly links to what I’ve found intriguing, compelling or convicting lately. Perhaps you’ll find something of interest in what I’ve been reading online and in print!
If you pay attention to the sounds and rhythms of Caledonia and Hibernia, you’ll enjoy reading Twelve Letters That Didn’t Make the Alphabet . I found it via Homeschoolenrichment.com newsletter.
One Hundred Reasons – American Thinker’s Daren Jonescu has been on a roll lately, first with American Education: Rotting from the Inside, and now with 100 Reasons to Abandon Public Education Now.
Are your children in danger or dangerous?
“In the ancient world, the city gates were not only where defenders of a city would face invaders, but they were also what we would call the public square.
Blessed was the man who had sons who stand with him in a crucial showdown at the city council. They were shoulder to shoulder behind him, and not over on the other side.
Neither were they all at home playing video games or out back smoking in the alley.”
Mr. Garner and I are, sadly, too late for a quiver full, but there is still much to glean from this article on Christian parenting by Doug Wilson entitled, Raising Arrow Children.
Getting a job – might be easier in the future for homeschoolers: Educating Thinkers. By way ofBeautiful Feet Books Blog –
Brandy at Afterthoughts posted my Latin series on her wonderful blog and my hits climbed to the sky! Thanks Brandy! I’m also grateful for her Stupendous Sunday posts which always, always, always get me thinking! In one in particular: How to Matter, by Andrew Kern for the Circe Institute, I particularly liked this bit:
“Instead of confidently showing what a school steeped in grace would look like, we conform to the world and make ourselves a little pathetic.
How, after all, will nourishing a child’s soul on the true, the good, and the beautiful help a child get into college?
What we seem not to ask is why a parent would want to send a child to a college for which the true, the good, and the beautiful didn’t help prepare him?”
On the Bookshelf
Mr. Garner recently read Amity Schlae’s look back at the depression called The Forgotten Man. Get ready to have the progressive take on events you’ve been taught all these years turned upside down. We are looking forward to reading her biography of Coolidge, but if you need to catch up, you can read this bit from Hillsdale College Imprimis.
My brain has been burned recently reading Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals & Meaning, by L’Abri Fellowship, and Francis A. Schaeffer Scholar Nancy Pearcey. There is a great deal to absorb, and at points I was tempted to thrust it away, as I slogged through the sections on philosophy and art. But I was chastened by Mortimer Adler (How to Read a Book) to continue on and give it “the kind of reading that a book which challenges your understanding deserves.” At the same time for my personal fiction I read Quo Vadis, by Henryk Sienkiwicz. I was amazed that Norfolk Public Library had a copy. Usually, anything classic, or remotely Christian, requires an Interlibrary Loan. Sad really.
Sanctity of Life
I have admired Ryan Bomberger’s articulate voice for life for quite a while, but watching him fence with this faux journalist was a delight. Interestingly he is being sued by the NAACP.
The Gosnell trial has been appalling. Worse has been the media’s cover-up. Lots of reasons why:
The news media in America simply will not tell you what they don’t want you to know, or what they do not want to face – The Banality of Bias
LifeNews covered the trial and it is an appalling collection of articles. Here is a summary article ghoulishly titled “All American Horror Story.”
World writer Andree Seu Peterson has also been covering the trial, her collection of articles might be easier to read, but I make no promises. The truth is horrific, and Andree looks at trial through the worldview given her by our Creator God, so her observations are appalling on a deeper level. This is an interesting quote:
“The pro-choice media had their own challenge. They had to justify to themselves being no-shows at a trial that contained all the ingredients they usually salivate over—murder, race, lack of government regulation, the plight of disadvantaged women. Gosnell is actually one of their own—an abortion-rights champion. In another time, in another place, they would have made him a hero: “African-American doctor forgoes big salaries to serve the underserved of the inner city.” But instead they had to cut him loose because he had become a liability. He drew the spotlight on details that should never see the sun.”
And politically speaking: Unspeakable Things Unspoken
Finally, for my former “faith family” at the UMC. A problem of Logic for Joe Biden and the Pro-Abortion Religious Left.
Family
Manhattan Declaration Amicus Brief for the Defense of Marriage Act – Read the brief (it’s brief) You should know why family matters. You should know why it is important to kindly but decisively defend marriage between a man and a woman. If you don’t understand why this matters, see the next article:
What has become painfully evident is that many of those who brought same-sex marriage to Canada have no respect for freedom of conscience and no intention of tolerating contrary opinion, whether that opinion is shaped by religious or by secular belief…Canadian Crackdown. The Canadian litany of pain, firings, and social and political polarization and extremism is extraordinary and lamentable, and we haven’t even begun to experience the mid- and long-term results of this mammoth social experiment.
Society
Memoria Press publishes our Latin Curriculum, among many other subjects in the Classical Education model. Their recent newsletter included this link to a video of Martin Cothran speaking on the topic, “Saving Western Civilization One Student at at Time.” And yes, they really do think that way. It’s about an hour, and if you’re not familiar with the history of education in America this past century, he gives a quick overview. He concludes with a quote from T.S. Eliot, that I find startlingly accurate, yet strangely hope-filled, certainly purposeful:
“The world is trying to experiment with attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time: so that the faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization and save the world from suicide.”
Second Amendment
Another articulate defense of the Second Amendment, this time from a legal immigrant.
For those who enjoyed the historically inspired and reasoned approach to gun ownership on Afterthoughts linked to in Nunc Cognosco Ex Parte 1 – here are links to a few more installments:
Understanding Guns in America: James Madison’s Angel Problem
Understanding Guns in America: On Amendments and Ratification
Understanding Guns in America: Res Publica, the Nature of a Republic
I’ve been accumulating this list for a while, adding and subtracting over the months. Originally, it was to be a weekly or monthly listing. But aren’t all plans subject to the reality of living life!
The post title I’ve chosen for these sorts of posts is obscure on purpose. Meaning “now I know in part,” the phrase is found in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians towards the end of chapter 13. It refers to the fact that our knowledge of God and His mysteries unfolds only in part during our human existence. We must wait for full disclosure. This should instill a great deal of humility in our thinking…
Rabbit Trails 