Month: May 2011
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The puzzle of financial prosperity and spiritual cultivation
My dad knows the price of just about everything. He can tell good deals from bad ones, whether we’re talking cars or mangoes, real estate or running shoes. He cuts coupons assiduously, reads the Sunday ads religiously, makes lists habitually, and then plots out plans of attack. He grew up in a working class family,…
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Examination of conscience: 2nd day of spiritual exercise (1)
I’m finding myself incredibly impatient this morning, so I need to explore my sense of impatience. I should begin with the nature of impatience. And then get on with some exercise. I feel impatient when my desire for something is deferred. Some kind of obstacle gets in the way. A simple example: Someone is visiting,…
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Examination of conscience: 1st day of spiritual exercise
For St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), devout Catholic and author of Spiritual Exercises, the examination of conscience was a vital exercise for one who wished to make spiritual progress. We might liken this practice to an intellectual-moral pilgrimage: a pilgrimage of self-transformation. A word before we begin. The virtues and defects I write about are…
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Standardized testing: the iffy, the bad, and the ugly
The biology teacher, writing anonymously, takes a moderate view of standardized testing. On the one hand, he believes that this movement fails to cultivate a student’s desire to learn for its own sake and, because many of the tests are poorly written, fails to measure student or teacher progress. In general, he’s appalled by the…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 