Category Archives: Thought for the Day

Thought for Christmas Eve

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From Peter Wehner’s “Why Jesus Matters“:

“Our witness is not right doctrine; it is our relational orientation… As friends of Jesus, we love one another — and that includes people different from us. In fact, no one can be an ‘other’, because in Christ we belong to one another.” We are called to love one another, honor one another, welcome one another, encourage one another and bear one another’s burdens…

Jesus says if we are his friends, we will do what he commands, and several times in John 15 he is specific about what that means:  Love each other as I have loved you. There are countless ways to love others, based on our talents and life circumstances, but the command is clear enough. We are not only to experience love; we are to extend it to others.

Going to church helps ‘keep me honest’ when it comes to extending love to others. It can be challenging, as MLK Jr. spoke to in his “Loving Your Enemies” sermon.  It can be challenging but keep at it.

Thought for the Day – October 21, 2022

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Over the past couple years Carlos Lozada has become a must-read writer for me.  His column in yesterday’s New York Times is a good example of why.  Some excerpts from “How to Strangle Democracy While Pretending to Engage in It“:

[The] right-side-of-history argument… is rarely about history at all. It is a pre-emptive assertion of one side’s virtue and another’s wickedness; it is not about interpreting the past but about scoring points in the present to shape the future. Hirschman likened this argument to “the earlier assurance, much sought after by all combatants, that God was on their side.” The comparison is apt: God on your side will help you win, and history on your side will say that you did….

“You are extreme and destructive; I have history on my side.”… renders dialogue not just impossible but unfathomable….

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Miscellany – September 2, 2022

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Thought for the Week:

Any theoretical formation with a self-defense mechanism that refashions those that disagree with it into a symptom of the problem it is diagnosing has most likely cross the line from theory into theology. Like Marxists who reflexively label any criticism as petty bourgeois or Lacanians anxious to read any pushback as the outcome of unconscious repression, there is no way to test it except on the terms that it has itself provided.

            – Nick Mitchell

I listened to Know Your Enemy: Christopher Lasch’s Critique of Progress, with Chris Lehmann again this week. It was even better the second time through.  (Lasch’s writing was a big influence when I was forming my view of the world in my twenties.)

Conservative liberal socialist?

Thought for the Day – January 8, 2022

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Resolved:  Coalitions comprised of people with different cultural capital are weak.

Reluctantly, I’m inclined to agree.  What do you think?  Agree?  Disagree?  Usually so, but not always?  What exceptions can you think of?

FWIW, I looked up a bunch of definitions of “cultural capital”.  I find Wikipedia’s definition the easiest to understand:

Cultural capital comprises the social assets of a person (education, intellect, style of speech, style of dress, etc.) that promote social mobility in a stratified society.

 

 

Thought for the Day – December 18, 2021

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Betty Hall, founder of Simon’s Rock, on education:

“There is a four-year span here when youth should become acquainted with the whole range of human inquiry – man in relation to his physical environment – man in relation to his fellow man or social environment – and man in relation to the world of his own creation, his music, his art, religion, literature, and philosophy.”

Thought for the Day – August 22, 2021

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Excerpting and adapting some text from an opinion piece in the Washington Post:

The US withdrawal from Afghanistan reflects a sound realignment of our national interest.  It puts us on better footing to deal with the new challenges of the 21st century and clarify to allies and adversaries what we are and are not willing to expend resources on.  Ending the long and futile war in Afghanistan will allow us to focus more attention on bigger priorities.