Seriously? It's already been another week since I last wrote in my journal? Another brief litany of current distraction:

• I finally became finished-finished with my administrative nightmares from the end of the spring semester. That alone would justify a lost week. I am so glad to be done with it all.

• Dived into some research reading Kevin ( Read more... )

One piece of wisdom that I have come to appreciate more and more through the years has been a point C.S. Lewis made toward the end of the first book of his Mere Christianity. In this passage, he was dealing with one of the major hurdles to Christian belief in the 20th century. This was the generally held idea by a number of people that ( Read more... )

History passes before our eyes. I can remember as a kid, attending the Mount Morris Fourth of July parade, and seeing the old convertible go by with the ancient-looking remaining local World War I veterans in it, and I remember being impressed with their mere age. Later, I would come to know a bit more about that fearful struggle through reading ( Read more... )

From my current dissertation reading, which I was able to do maybe a whole 60 pages of while babysitting the nieces since Thursday the 13th (more on that later):In the course on Blondel, John [McNeill, S.J.] basically taught us his dissertation. He told us that when he first read L'Action, he thought it the most original philosophical work he had ( Read more... )

Twenty-five of us packed the house again this year.

Thanksgiving this year was on the Feast of Lewis, who writes understandingly in The Four Loves of that love that families share, called storge in Greek and translated by him as "Affection" in English. He notices how this genial love we share with others who we might not have otherwise picked ( Read more... )

As I'm sure I've pointed out in earlier years, for me, August 16th is the start of the new year: I think primarily in terms of school years, and this "halfway point" through the month was when we could start "officially" practicing with "A.C." - our cross country coach Arthur Carlson - under IHSA rules, thus starting the school year for me back in ( Read more... )

Mike and Donna bought a place last year, a Milwaukee Bungalow in the Riverwest neighbourhood, that needed lots of work done on it in order to convert it from duplex to the single-family home that they wanted. Now, when I think of "fixing up" a place I move into, I'm thinking painting and maybe some very basic wood surface work. Mike, like Dan, ( Read more... )

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Well, recovery continues at a good and welcome pace. After going right up to the door of whether or not I'd have to hospitalize myself because of a 24-hour intestinal blockage, all that gave way, I got the evil drug out of my system, and--since we're not going to continue to use that medication--life became so much easier. It's amazing how ( Read more... )

Well, I have to say that the first part of "The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud With Dr. Armand Nicholi" was a far better piece of programming than almost anything I've ever seen dealing with a "religious question" on American television. The two writers, held up as the symbolic theist and atheist of the 20th century, had the first ( Read more... )