Author: Andrew Taggart

• January 6, 2015

  William James on the divine and the religious attitude: Confusions discussed

  In the beginning of The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James writes so beautifully about religious experience, so respectfully about subjects that fly in the face of what he calls in the Preface ‘medical materialism.’ Take this early, muscular, stylistically delicate passage on the concepts of the divine and the religious attitude: There must be something solemn, serious, and tender…
• January 4, 2015

  The Way of Flowers (A whim)

  I think I could really take to the Way of Flowers, though I don’t know what it involves. I like looking at wild flowers. I like cutting them. I like arranging them naturally, organically, letting them hang every which way or certain ways, as if no hand had touched them or, if at all, only gently so.…
• January 2, 2015

  An artist’s thought

  Amazement.–Look with me at the man on the canvas, the one with two faces, two men or the same facing different directions. A sailor, a hardened man, a handkerchief lightly about the neck. He has no ears yet but he is equipped, beautifully so, with a firm carnivore’s jaw. Awe the moment we stopped, feet scuffing earth no more,…
• December 31, 2014

  Two boo’s for ‘living in order to work’

  I Call me puzzled. I can’t help but recall a wealthy man I used to tutor while I was living in New York City. He was an heir to a famous American dynasty and was doubtless so wealthy that none of his grandchildren would ever need to work. Despite this, he worked very long hours, founding and co-founding companies,…
• December 29, 2014

  ‘God cannot be amazed’

  ‘God cannot be amazed,’ states Josef Pieper in Happiness and Contemplation. So much the worse for God, I think. It can be good to think about what God cannot be. God knows, so he cannot be amazed. Not ever. The Thomist Pieper: In contemplation a mirandum is seen, that is to say, a reality which evokes amazement because…