Month: March 2009

• Charles Murray: “…to make observed human nature compatible with theoretical schemes…”

  But what is it that we have learned that is truly new about human nature in the 20th century? I submit that the body of even the best work consists overwhelmingly of commentary on insights first expressed centuries ago. Indeed, if I were to characterize the role of the behavioral sciences in the 20th century—and…

• We Know the Garden In the Act Of Drawing It

  The first proper object of our knowledge is the Creator.  He made it all, including my organ of knowing, and this “all” that He made is the Garden.   The entire world here below is the Garden, seen from from far away, in exile. Normally, we observe the world via reason but we do not…

• Conversation: Pericopes Shorten

  Of course our talks have gotten shorter.  And even our sentences are shorter.    Your one sentence charms my thoughts for week, and mine, yours.  This is language at home, in the garden of paradise.  Words are food. Think of the desert, and how the monks were not silent but were succinct. The cenobitic rule of…

• Conversation: Sweetness Moves Toward Liturgy

  Conversation in new truth takes on formal voices.   The room feels hushed.Formality, you see, is not the mode of distance, but of preciousness.   It is the courtliness of the lord and the lady on the hidden stairs. Formality is real when the gestures are stylized and the eyes are moist. “Liturgist”. To some,…

• Conversation Is Always Sweet

  Conversation tends to the unbearably  Sweet. Do you notice how, when you remember our conversation now,  it feels sweet?  Your heart aches to talk again.   It is like the feeling of being in love.   But, unlike infatuations, it need never go away.    Don’t spend the sweetness on yourselves.   The friends will…

• Conversation: You Are Canon To Me

  “Canon” means one thing in religious studies, but its primordial, organic, even mystical meaning is the commitment one Friend makes to another, in real time, as they talk. Canonicity is the entrance into Conversation.  Because I love you, your words are canon to me.   My responses will embrace your thought, affirm it, subsume it,…

• Conversation: Each Pericope Advances Upon the Last

  Any comment that could make sense without the context of its predecessor is not in a conversation. My thought will embrace yours, subsume it, affirm it, and build on it. This is the order and structure of talk; all else is disorder and anti-talk.

• Conversation: Nothing in Your Heart Matters

  Say something about what I said.   Anything, as long as what you say is not about your own thoughts or feelings.   Instead, add the next sentence to my sentence.  About a thing or subject.  Take the attitude that nothing in your heart is important. There is a certain type of person who talks…

• Conversation: Here Is It Works

  Here is how it works: I’ll say something, and you say something back, and our hearts are fixed on caring for each other.   Upon this ground we will hear God join our talk. There really isn’t much more to know than this.   Though I’m glad to tell you what I’ve learned about how…

• Conversation Is A Specific Way, And Experience, In Talking

  “Conversation” is not a subjective term. It has as precise a meaning as “tree” or “rock”.  In a conversation, each pericope advances upon the last.  It is warm, sweet, structured, disciplined, highly idiosyncratic yet full of role-discipline — all at once. What most people call “conversation” is not. Most verbal encounters are just serial monologues,…