I was a little annoyed tonight, washing the dishes and trying unsuccessfully to pray, which is probably why I started wondering what I did. I asked myself if I couldn’t do better than the monastic life by living unmarried in the world. My reflections were part thought experiment and part serious. In any case, it […]

I returned last night from two weeks at St. G monastery. I had a marvelous stay. Here are some pictures of the grounds:
Here is the driveway up to where the monks live and eat. Originally this was intended as a guest house, but as the monastery grew the monks moved in themselves.

To my right is […]

I lost my glasses yesterday while shoveling snow at some houses behind the cemetary. I went to look for them as soon as the sun was up.

Fortuntely they weren’t hard to find. On the walk back I took some pictures.

While at the monastery, I read David Bradshaw’s Aristotle East and West, published in 2004 by Cambridge University Press. I took notes, because early on I realized it would be an important book. But by the end I was amazed. Finally, here is a scholarly, just argument how the West in its root concepts diverged […]

“It’s me!” as one young friend will say on entering a room. After happy visits to Providence and Boston, I am home safe and sound at good St. Tikhon’s, and so I offer thanks.

We all have our ideas about God, some more “rational” and some less. We have propositions, concepts, categories, images, attitudes, associations, feelings. In Polanyi’s terms, we have both formal and tacit knowledge. It is easy to see how our propositions, concepts, and categories can be true or false. An image can be more or less […]

I took an online Myers-Briggs test. Here is my score:

I
100%

N
12%

T
1%

J
1%

This type is a Rational Coordinator Mastermind. Other INTJs include Octavius, Hannibal, C.S. Lewis, Gandalf, Cassius, and Professor Moriarty. I feel like I’m in good company, mostly, except for that guy with a lean and hungry look.
Here is what sounded familiar from the description:

Self-confident in my […]