Pelagic

Jan 28

Psalm 51:1-12

Mercy, steadfast love, abundant mercy,

Blot out, wash me, cleanse me,

Truth in the inward being, wisdom in the secret heart,

Purge me, wash me,

Hide, blot out,

Create, renew,

Cast not, take not,

Restore, uphold.

Oct 1

"In a culture that is inarticulate about moral categories and touchy about giving offense, teaching empathy is a safe way for schools and other institutions to seem virtuous without risking controversy or hurting anybody’s feelings."

Sep 29

Nemateleotris

“Human reason has a peculiar fate in one kind of its cognitions: it is troubled by questions that it cannot dismiss, because they are posed to it by the nature of reason itself, but that it also cannot answer, because they surpass human reason’s every ability.” - Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason.

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and understanding.” - Proverbs 1:7.

Sep 28

John Muir Trail. Epic.

Sep 16

10 Classics of Western Literature

Sep 13

“But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the LORD,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.” Psalm 13:5-6

Sep 9

“…But before examining this idea more closely and at the same time inquiring into other truths that can be gathered from it, at this point I want to spend some time contemplating this God, to ponder his attributes and, so far as the eye of my darkened mind can take me, to gaze upon, to admire, and to adore the beauty of this immense light. For just as we believe by faith that the greatest felicity of the next life consists solely in this contemplation of the divine majesty, so too we now experience that from the same contemplation, although it is much less perfect, the greatest pleasure of which we are capable in this life can be perceived.” Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy.

Sep 7

“Before the time of cords and scourges and lamentation
Grant us thy peace.
Before the stations of the mountain of desolation,
Before the certain hour of maternal sorrow,
Now at this birth season of decease,
Let the Infant, the still unspeaking and unspoken Word,
Grant Israel’s consolation
To one who has eighty years and no to-morrow.” T.S. Eliot, “A Song for Simeon.”

May 10

“This I know: that the nature of God cannot ever, anywhere or in any way, be defective, whereas natures made out of nothing can be. As to these natures, however: the more they have being, and the more good they do - the more, that is they effect - the more they have efficient causes. On the other hand, insofar as they lack being, and for this reason do evil - for what, in this case, do they achieve but emptiness? - they have deficient causes. And I know also that, where the will becomes evil, this evil would not arise in it if the will itself were unwilling; and its defects are therefore justly punished, because they are not necessary, but voluntary. For the defections of the will are not towards evil things, but are themselves evil: that is, they are not defections towards things which are evil by nature and in themselves; rather, it is the defection of the will itself which is evil, because against the order of nature. It is a turning away from that which has supreme being and towards that which has less.” St. Augustine. City of God. Ed. R. W. Dyson (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2007), 508.

Jul 14