Mar 07, 2013

Sports: The Open Door for Government Control of Homeschooling in America

Some people believe the “Tebow Laws,” which are being proposed in various states, are a positive advancement for homeschooling. However, I believe homeschoolers should seriously consider the following perspective: although it is, perhaps, mostly like-minded friends who are pushing these “Tebow Laws” through their state legislatures, these laws are...

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Mar 05, 2013

Bear Fruit in Large Quantities: The Orchard Apprenticeship

What is an orchard? The easiest and most obvious answer is that it is a large field with fruit-producing trees, intentionally planted for the purpose of harvesting large quantities of fruit. The less obvious answer, however, is the one that needs to be considered. Therefore, since “brevity is the...

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Mar 04, 2013

Let’s Do Something Beautiful for God

I have been familiar with the name 0f Mother Teresa all my life, but I was not really inspired by her until recently, when I read Malcolm Muggeridge’s short book entitled Something Beautiful for God. Mother Teresa vowed, as have the men and women who work with her ministries, to...

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Mar 01, 2013

The Novel Every Christian Should Read

“We think it our duty to notice that, outside of and, so to say, beyond his faith, the bishop had an excess of love.”1 This is Victor Hugo’s description, in his novel Les Misérables, of the Bishop of Digne, a man who gave away his bishop’s palace to the local charitable...

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Feb 28, 2013

Music Shapes Us (Excerpted from The Neglected Muse: Why Music Is an Essential Liberal Art [Part III*])

Even apart from profound connection with mathematics, music is pre-eminent among the arts for the order and clarity, the sharply defined character, of its elements. Music moves us, sometimes to overpowering emotion. It does so through well-defined structures, through an order of tones and rhythms. It is not...

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Feb 27, 2013

Third Declension Latin Adjectives: The Thirds (Part III of III)

We have spent the past few months discussing the enigmatic thirds in Latin: third declension, third conjugation, and now, third declension adjectives.   Let us review the basics of the thirds. Third conjugation verbs have –ere (short “e,” in contrast to the second conjugation which has a long “e” with a...

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Feb 25, 2013

Your Presuppositions Are Showing

If you have ever read Robinson Crusoe, you may remember one of his most serendipitous discoveries. Crusoe, the shipwrecked castaway, finds barley growing by his homemade shelter and realizes that he himself must have grown it, however unintentionally. He deduces that the grain has grown from what he believed to...

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Feb 24, 2013

Eradicate Truncated Similes for Just 72¢ per Day!

WARNING: Before you read this article, please know that if you proceed you will inevitably become acutely aware of something that will, henceforth, continually unsettle you. If you are prepared for that eventuality, then read on. A few years ago, my family and I were traveling through Oklahoma City....

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Feb 21, 2013

The Qualities of the Best Schools

A few years ago I began to make a list of qualities that I see in the best schools I visit. I measure the quality of the school by the depth of its investment into each student’s soul, which may cause this to be a not very practical list....

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Feb 16, 2013

The Coming Educational Revolution

I think I am pretty safe in stating this prediction: there is an educational revolution on its way and it is, indeed, already afoot and trampling hard. When distance learning was first introduced, it made some ripples. Then when online classes and, indeed, entire online colleges came on the...

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Talking Differently about Music

I have decided to take a different tack when I talk to someone about music. Usually, I ask a person what he likes to listen to, or what artists he likes. Why do I ask this question? Recently I heard a lecture on music and the arts by Dr....

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Doctor Who: an Ancient Hero for the Modern Day

I know I’m a few years late on this one, but as history’s longest running science fiction TV series becomes even more of a cultural phenomenon, I thought I’d offer a critical perspective on what makes Doctor Who significant to classically minded people. A quick disclaimer: Classical Conversations is not in...

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