Month: June 2011

• June 13, 2011

  Nihilism in Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom

  On the one hand, Jonathan Franzen does a masterful job of showing how unchecked freedom leads of necessity to nihilism. The ability to choose this or that cannot of itself answer to the more fundamental question, “Why bother choosing in the first place? What makes one item more valuable than the other? And, for that…
• June 10, 2011

  On lectio divina – day 2

  Suppose you were to approach a book the way you do wine. To begin with, you’d be careful in your selection. After all, the thing’s going in your mouth and down your gullet. Once you’ve selected something palatable, you’d let it breathe, take it in, sit with it for a while, give it time. And…
• June 9, 2011

  On the lectio divina

  In the Middle Ages, the lectio divina was the art of reading Scripture slowly and contemplatively. It was a gustatory experience if not also an experience in attunement. Still in Montaigne’s time, books were to be sat with, chewed on, mulled over, and taken in. Now, books are packets of information: Our eyes do the…
• June 8, 2011

  Count no man happy until he has died

  A friend of mine came to New York to interview for a fellowship. I hadn’t seen her in 6 years. After she left just now, I was left with the clearest of impressions: A person is not a block of wood but an organism that grows, flourishes, or wilts. Literature is vital for understanding the…
• June 7, 2011

  Bringing on the future: A follow-up

  A strange discussion ensued after commentators read Dougald’s post, “Bringing on the Future.” In his defense, I wrote the following: I could speculate about the misunderstandings and the miscommunications, but in the end such armchair thoughts would only amount to musings and conjectures. What struck me in what I read, though, was the extent to which…