Bruce Charlton says we are experiencing

This dullest, seediest, most mundane of apocalypses/ revolutions

And Wm. Jas T.  says

I had not been prepared for just how stupid the apocalypse would be

That is one of the key insights of the Screwtape Letters.  Evil is not interesting.  Urbane, witty evil is just a tactic that evil can only sustain for a little while.  The show doesn’t go on.

(Note:  I don’t think we are literally currently experiencing the apocalypse.  It can get duller, seedier, and stupider yet.)

I find absolutely no grounds for optimism, and I have every reason for hope.

–thus Paul Mankowski, SJ.

Here is an uneven essay arguing that the economy should be family centered instead of individual centered. Uneven, but full of plums. So, little Jack Horner, stick in your thumb. What a good boy you are!

Highlights:

The idea that economics is the study of markets is one of the greatest mistakes of our time. Properly understood, economics is the study of the production of goods and the provision of services. The market is only one realm in which goods production and service provision are found. The others are the family, the state, and civil society (the nonprofit or charity realm). The family is the oldest economic institution, as the very term “economics”—from the Greek word for household management—suggests.

Each of the four interlocking economies that make up the econ­omy as a whole is based on a different set of principles. In the family economy, family relationships govern the pattern of both contributions and entitlements among family members. In the public econ­omy, the state takes in taxes and provides goods or services to citizens according to some conception of the public interest. In the market, goods are produced and services are provided by firms or individuals in return for profits or wages. In the nonprofit or charity economy, people donate gifts of money or labor to organizations which help needy individuals or supply social goods (like higher education or museums or hospitals or symphony orchestras).

And (more…)

Vague or esoteric speech comes from a lack of confidence. Lack of confidence in oneself, lack of confidence in one’s listeners.

Often quite justified.

It is an aggravation that SJWs have no sense of humor but it is a disaster that they have no sense of tragedy.

They say that history is on their side.

No. But legend and memory on our side.

Live worthy of the judgment of legend.

Be the myth that you would see in the world.

Just as he prefers a carefully regulated diet and a low-risk career, so also he prefers the perceived safety of trusting what Studies Have Shown over taking a leap of faith. Just as he is content with a humdrum life, so is he content with a humdrum view of life. It has never occurred to him to aspire to be a god, and so the idea of God has little appeal.

-thus Wm. Jas.

The best way is the the long-term way of thinking: building or rebuilding beautiful architecture and infrastructure that lasts; planting trees and gardens wisely and well, with an eye to the end result perhaps 20-100 years in the future; being good stewards of the land for future use and enjoyment; accumulating wealth for descendants; learning from the mistakes of ancestors and healing the wounds of abuse and sorrow that have been passed down through families; and preserving the best of our culture while discarding the dross.”
-thus E.C.

 It’s not a problem to make emotional decisions, as long as you are taking all your emotions, now and later, into account. Integrating those later emotions with the current ones is a big purpose in life.

-thus Friend of the JG Lucinda.

It’s also a big purpose of the gospel. Decisions made like that are what we call wisdom.

Most people believe in God because they feel that life means something.

-thus Walter Russell Mead, who is yule blogging.

On wounded feet, He stands triumphant over death.   With pierced palms and scarred wrists, He holds out unending grace.

-thus Jeffrey R. Holland

The presence of God is eternity. (more…)

Meg Stout gives a plausible explanation of when dissent warrants expulsion from the Church, and when it doesn’t. It’s true that the women’s organization “Give Us The Priesthood Or We’re Telling The NY Times” (that was the name, right?) was “tone-deaf when it comes to Mormon culture but in tune with world media.” They certainly seemed to come from a much more alien value system than some of the subtler snakes in the grass, who dress and talk like Mormons, so much that they seem almost like the real thing. But I think it’s even simpler than even that. (more…)

The God who created worlds without number doesn’t seem too averse to grand ambition.
–Thus MC.

Places long unseen often loom larger in memory than they really are. That haystack on the old farm . . . that green lane . . . that high fence in the back yard and the tree we climbed to look over it – surely they were an important part of the universe. And the old house had yawning caves in the closets, and untold mysteries in that deep cellar and up in that beckoning yet forbidding attic. Why, that house couldn’t have been as small as now it seems.

I remember these things, and they were real, and and they are real now where I keep them in remembrance.

But we can’t go back.

(more…)