Archive for July, 2011
Reagan being honored in Europe
Posted in That's Life, tagged America, current events, Europe, food for thought, history, human dignity, Reagan, society, worldviews on July 16, 2011| Leave a Comment »
On Caesar, and such as would like to be
Posted in That's Life, tagged America, government, history, political vocabulary on July 13, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Robinson O’Brien-Bours writes of Gaius Julius Caesar and his legacy, on the occasion of Caesar’s birthday. (Can you guess how long ago he was born? The answer is in the opening line of the linked post.)
Possibly I shouldn’t, but I like the bit about ‘we have further ridiculed this name by giving it to a few self-glorified bureaucrats, “peevish schoolboys unworthy of such an honor”.’
Ideals are all very well in their way, but…
Posted in Books, That's Life, tagged Books, life lessons, quotes, worldviews on July 13, 2011| Leave a Comment »
…Yet even in the stress of work it is often sound policy for a man to halt for a moment and collect his thoughts. There must be some diagnosis of the problem before him, the end to which his work is directed, the conditions under which he labours. While it is useless to tell the story of a task before it is done, it is often politic to re-examine the difficulties and to get the mind clear as to what the object of all this strife and expense of money may be. Ideals are all very well in their way, but they are apt to become very dim lamps unless often replenished from the world of facts and trimmed and adjusted by wholesome criticism. — John Buchan.
Found in the “Introductory” to The African Colony: Studies in the Reconstruction, 1903.
The American Mind, or The Logic of Freedom
Posted in That's Life, tagged America, citizenship, culture, freedom, government, history, human dignity, human rights, politics, worldviews on July 12, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Letters from an Ohio Farmer provides a great little history and philosophy lesson, in The American Mind.
John Quincy Adams: on the rule of right
Posted in That's Life, tagged America, citizenship, government, history, morality, society, worldviews on July 11, 2011| Leave a Comment »
From July 4, 1837, a look at the novelty and morality of American government.
A brief history of numbers
Posted in That's Life, tagged Catholics, Christians, education, everyday life, history on July 8, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Liber Abbici, published in 1202, was not the first book in the West to advocate the use of arabic numerals instead of Roman. James M. Kushiner points to earlier works in the short post How We Got Our Numbers.
Teaching silence
Posted in Home and Family, That's Life, tagged Christianity, everyday life, kids, parenting on July 7, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Michael Catt has a guest post by Stephanie Bennett, called Silence. Tucked in, near the end, is this:
…But I believe we can carve silence into our day. It is said that Susannah Wesley, the mother of John and Charles Wesley, spent one hour each day in prayer. She gave birth to 19 children, and ten of them lived past the age of two. If she couldn’t find a quiet spot in her home to pray, she would pull her apron over her head as a sign that the children should not disturb her.
If we can teach our children to eat solid foods and tie their shoes and even surf the web on our smart phones, then we can certainly teach them to observe periods of silence each day. Whether it’s putting your infant or toddler in their crib or playpen with some toys or teaching your children to play alone in their rooms, I believe we’re capable of instilling this type of discipline in our children. We expect other things from them, many of which won’t matter in eternity. So why not teach them now the priceless beauty of silence?
Doing right, or doing wrong
Posted in That's Life, tagged culture, ethics, movies, quotes, videos on July 4, 2011| Leave a Comment »
This snippet of John Wayne monologue from “The Alamo” has a pointed way of describing what happens to a man when he decides to do wrong.
Living in the middle of nowhere…
Posted in That's Life, tagged America, citizenship, everyday life, history, life lessons on July 4, 2011| Leave a Comment »
… Jana Novak reflects on George Washington, and Forging Independence.
I Pledge Allegiance To The Lamb
Posted in Life Around Here, That's Life, Uncategorized, tagged Christian music, Christianity, Christians, faith, music, videos on July 4, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Sunday, a mother and her two school-aged children sang this song for us during service.
This video is has a Fourth of July theme mixed in (but, of course, the song is for every day):