Category: Education

On Being a “Word” Guy

  

I’m a “word” guy, and becoming more so after writing two books in the past two years. I’m always looking for just the right way to say things, and I appreciate writers whose originality with words makes one rethink, or think more deeply, about life. That’s why I’m attracted to the wordsmithing of people like Whittaker Chambers and C. S. Lewis. It’s not just what they say—which is truth-hitting-you-where-it-helps/hurts-most—but the way they say it. Most of us have a hard… Read more »

Focusing on the Eternal

  

Last year’s political season was probably the most divisive in modern American history. The nature of the presidential race was such that I felt compelled to concentrate on it in this blog. However, I always sought to provide thoughts on other topics as well. After all, this blog is not about politics and government only; it’s about life overall. I have a daily routine of online sites I check for current events and commentary, but I don’t limit my reading… Read more »

Willful Ignorance: Never a Safe Space

  

Nice to know that neither Obama nor Biden will make an appearance at Castro’s memorial. I don’t think that’s because they wouldn’t like to do so, but the backlash just might be greater than they wish to handle. Most people, outside of the press, aren’t exactly in mourning that the dictator is dead. Some have very good reasons not to feel particularly sad about it. The Castro legacy is not hard to discover: As I said in a previous post,… Read more »

My Lewis Weekend

  

I had the distinct pleasure last Friday evening of speaking to the New York C. S. Lewis Society in Manhattan. This society was the first organization in America established to study the works of Lewis and help promote them, beginning back in 1969. When I was researching my Lewis book, I had contacted the society for information to help in my research. Not only did I receive that help, I also received an invitation to talk about the book after… Read more »

What Academic Freedom?

  

Radicalism on university campuses has changed somewhat since the 1960s. Back then, the radicals were fighting against what they perceived were conservative administrations and professors, and their protests often turned violent. What they didn’t really understand is that most of those administrations and faculty members weren’t philosophical conservatives at all. Liberalism was dominant in the academic realm. It’s just that liberals at that time still professed a belief in honest debate over ideas. Today, it’s those who were protesting in… Read more »

When Clyde Kilby Met C. S. Lewis

  

Clyde Kilby was the man responsible for bringing the C. S. Lewis Papers to the Wade Center at Wheaton College, where not only Lewis’s papers now reside, but also those of Tolkien and five other British luminaries with ties to Lewis. Kilby and Lewis met face-to-face only once, back in 1953, but the impression from that visit stayed with Kilby the rest of his life. When Kilby returned from England, he wrote about his experience. Upon knocking [at Lewis’s Oxford… Read more »

Where I Come From & Where I Am Today

  

I’ve been musing the past few days on the roots of my political and/or governmental philosophy. Why am I where I am today in my understanding of what’s best for the governing of this nation? I wasn’t raised in a home that taught me what I now believe, so it’s not a matter of merely copying what my parents thought. In fact, I grew up thinking the Democrats were the party to support. I was conservative as far as I… Read more »