Lent as a Gift

Each year the season of Lent asks us to embrace a spiritual gravity, a downward movement of soul, a turning from our self-sufficiency and sinfulness. In such quiet turning we are humbled and thus made ready to receive from God a fresh and joyous grace. Bobby Gross, in Living the Church Year When I came across [...]

Liturgy and literature

Being a disciple of Jesus is not primarily a matter of getting the right ideas and doctrines and beliefs into your head in order to guarantee proper behavior; rather, it is a matter of being the kind of person who loves rightly – who loves God and neighbor and is oriented to the world by the [...]

Mystery Stories (Not the Kind You Think)

The lack of mystery in our modern life means decay and impoverishment for us. A human life is of worth to the extent that it keeps its respect for mystery. By honoring mystery, we keep within us some of the child we used to be. Children keep their eyes wide open, wide awake, because they [...]

Serendipity, or Not Murdering Delight

It is arguable that all very great works should be strictly protected from young persons; they should at any rate be spared the indignity of having their teeth and claws blunted for the satisfaction of examiners. It is the first shock that matters. Once that has been experienced, no amount of later familiarity will breed [...]

C.S. Lewis on the Necessity of Reading

The nearest I have yet got to an answer [to the question of why we should read] is that we seek an enlargement of our being. We want to be more than ourselves. Each of us by nature sees the whole world from one point of view with a perspective and a selectiveness peculiar to [...]

Of Reading, Writing, and Living Well.

Bad writing, which is composed in ready-made phrases rather than the exact words, has its counterpart in bad reading, which interprets by means of ready-made assumptions.” D.G. Myers, in a blog comment here, via Alan Jacobs’ tumblelog. I’ve been thinking about this comment for awhile now. Here at Aslan’s Library, we’ve been thinking and writing [...]

Is This Book Beautiful? part 1

I have one overarching, albeit fuzzy, question in the back of my mind when I’m choosing books for my kids. It pretty much covers all of the pitfalls Haley and I have been writing about, and best way I can articulate it is: “Is this book beautiful?” I believe this is the most important question [...]

A Compelling Vision of the Goodness of Goodness Itself

Mere instruction in morality is not sufficient to nurture the virtues. It might even backfire, especially when the presentation is heavily exhortative and the pupil’s will is coerced. Instead, a compelling vision of the goodness of goodness itself needs to be presented in a way that is attractive and stirs the imagination. A good moral [...]