A terrier had been a long time without any rats in his warehouse. When an infestation occurred after a long interval of peace he was wearied and disgusted with all the hunting and killing. It was hard to blame the rats overmuch for trying to eat and, as the terrier knew, the warehouse was stuffed with stores. Some of it just sat there until it spoiled. So why all this emnity?

The terrier chewed the problem over until he arrived at a fair compromise. He would leave a tithe of the warehouse for the rats. That would be more food than they got to in the normal way, at far less risk of being killed. In return, the rats would leave off attacking the rest of the warehouse and he, the terrier, could have peace.

He went to the warehouse and announced in his loudest voice, “oh rat king, I want to respect your need for food while respecting my need to guard the warehouse. I will leave this corner of the warehouse unguarded. Any of your rats that come here I will leave alone. In return, rat king, you will leave the rest of the warehouse alone.” The terrier then retired outside, confident he had solved the problem.

Discern what is likely to happen next. In doing so, you may wish to ask yourself three questions.

Will the rat king keep the agreement?

Is the rat king aware there is an agreement?

Do the rats have a king?

In the late empire, strange and decadent luxuries flourish. At great expense women scar their bodies and scholars compose humorless jests.

C.S. Lewis famously as a kid tried to come up with a vivid realization of God each time he prayed. A pretty silly thing to do. Mr. Lewis was a bit of a theater kid in his youth.

Some time ago I added repentance to my list of things for nightly prayer. Like a silly fellow, my idea of repentance was trying to come up with vivid realization of remorse.

Yesterday I realized that my time would be better spent doing an after-action review. (more…)

Two men meet. The one is older–not old, but older–and has gravity and authority. The other is younger, though not quite young. They are not meeting in the setting of the older man’s authority. It is one of those things where people are thrown together and sometimes ask deeper questions of each other than they normally would. Perhaps they both ended up in the same park for lunch, or are traveling on the same train.

Something has been niggling the older man about the younger man. In an attempt to get at it, the older one says, “do you think that you are extraordinary?” (more…)

It may surprise you to hear that I think of myself as reticent.

But I do.

Some men on my mission were better missionaries than me. I was in awe of them. They had so much life and fire.

When I ran into them after my mission, I was surprised. I now seemed to have much more life than they did. They seemed dull and insipid. (more…)

This insight has no doubt long since occurred to every one of you, but my brain woke me up at 3:30 this morning with the urgent information that the Restoration truth that God has a body, (and therefore that we are meant to be bodies, we are bodies), inevitably leads to the Restoration emphasis on families,. Families consisting of marriage (the bodily union of the sexes, i.e., sexuality) and the natural results of bodily marriage (children). Eternal bodies = eternal families.

Once the boy Joseph saw the Father in the flesh, it was inevitable that the man Joseph would spend his ministry trying to work out marriage and sex and ancestry and posterity.

There you have it, from my 3:30 AM brain to you. I gotta start eating something differently in the evenings.

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A young group of thrushes did everything together. Above all, they sang to each other.

Then their was a shift in the winds and a change in the seasons and they scattered in migration.

The next year one of the thrushes returned to the same spot. He had enjoyed his winter in the tropics but he had missed his friends intensely. Sadly many of them had not returned to that place

He made new friends. Though the song wasn’t quite the same the young bird still valued these friendships and was determined to hold on to them. He would sacrifice his tropical paradise to keep close to his friends. He would put up with cold and privation.

As winter approached, the bird’s determination was fixed. One by one, all the other songbirds flew away.

Moral: friendship and loyalty are hard virtues to practice by yourself.

A green shoot.

Apparently they have institute at the Y now and encourage freshman to go to it.

The institute director is a super social starter and is apparently massively encouraging dating and such.

Last time my daughter said that he announced he was giving 20 bucks to the first couple he saw leave holding hands. (more…)

We keep wondering when the next great apostasy will be and what it will look like.  Wonder no more.  Modernity is the great apostasy.  We are in it. Have been for years. (more…)

Bookslinger’s interesting comment on our last post made me realize I needed to improve my definition of a Pharisee.

What is a Pharisee? (more…)

Understanding virtue is a virtue.  Seeking virtue is also a virtue.  Therefore there can be virtues and vices in our understanding and pursuit of virtue (or more generally of things that are good).  That raises the possibility of a meta virtue set.  A set not about virtues or goods themselves, but about how one seeks them or knows them.

The virtuous and vicious ways to think about virtue I will have to think more about.  Hopefully our own virtue sets are in the virtuous category!  For now, lets turn our attention to seeking virtue.

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis talks about how the Adversary likes to tempt you into one vice by having you reject the other one.  It may have been Luther who said that we are never so likely to fall off on the left side of the horse as when we’ve just remounted after falling off the right.  Surrounded by cruelty, the old deceiver hopes to tempt you to cruelty.  But his secondary temptation is to tempt you to be too soft.  Surrounded by smarmy hypocrisy, he hopes you will become another smug virtue signaler.  But if you loathe that, becoming a proud open sinner will do just as well.  Political systems like ours that tend towards two dominant factions have that problem.  The obvious errors of the other coalition lead us to commit our own opposite errors.  I read widely and indiscriminately.  I read druids and narrow minded Christian chauvinists of various stripes and Nietzcheans and bland moderate policy guys and the whole gamut.  What I notice is that some of the most extreme elements are often mirror images of each other.  There are real and serious problems with modern Christianity (many of which restored Christianity avoids, but not all).  Various thinkers see them stark and clear, and so embrace the opposite errors.  No Ned Flanders, therefore Conan! (more…)

This isn’t a post on the sweetness.  It’s more about the bittersweet tenderness that can come from being part of a ward full of people.

You are in a very small ward with little musical talent.  Your daughter plays the organ, your other daughter conducts, your wife plays the piano for primary, your other daughter is the primary chorister.  You are of less account.  But you did put together a ward choir for Christmas despite no skill or experience along those lines.

Then the ward burgeons.  Dozens of new people move in within a year.

One is a lady who has a degree in choral something.  She has Opinions.  She expresses them.  Especially to the Bishopric.  They appoint her to be in charge of all music in the ward.  She makes herself the new ward chorister and primary chorister.  She changes lots of things because the were done Wrong before.  She suggests Improvements in the playing of your daughter and your wife.  She offers to give them lessons.  Irritatingly, not all her changes are bad ideas.  Some of them are good ideas your family tried to implement and met with resistance.  Some of them are good ideas you didn’t think of.  Irritatingly, she sometimes tries to be tactful.

Your dominant emotion is not bitterness or anger.  It is tenderness.  Tenderness without a clear object.  Do you feel tender for her?  For your family?  Or for the whole human condition?