When at the hospital for the birth of our son, I remember being unsettled by the fact that much of the medical staff kept referring to me as my wife’s “birthing partner.” This label struck me as deflating the stakes and investment I had (and have) in both my wife and child, and I likelyContinue reading “Two Anecdotes About Family”
Tag Archives: love
Bequeathed
I’ve heard complaints: why petty Creator would sic a father’s penalty upon the son; penance for the agitatorbut never due to parent’s belov’d spawn. Yet blind to volition is this protest – choices to make imbibed from choices made; the son’s own will drawn from father’s compressed.Elder’s conveyed dictates fledging’s inlaid. My boy, imperfect IContinue reading “Bequeathed”
Out of the Mouths of Babes
For A. J. S. In his Confessions, St. Augustine of Hippo articulates his well-known though questionable understanding of babies: he attributes to them a sinfulness and malice that has caused many readers to accuse the African Bishop of lacking compassion and sensitivity for human infancy. A friend of mine has, however, tried to persuade meContinue reading “Out of the Mouths of Babes”
Friendship and Its Contexts
In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses the nature of friendship and its profound (and perhaps near primary) importance in a fulfilling human life. This claim in itself could and has been the subject of much discourse, but his development of this topic provides many other ideas that are worth pursuing in their own right. OneContinue reading “Friendship and Its Contexts”
His Place
Sitting serene, the lounge of mother’s arm –Knowing, now, nothing of another place –A love irreplaceable as his charm. Basked in attention, withstanding her smarmBy staying ever close to sleep’s embrace:Sitting serene, the lounge of mother’s arm. Each new concern will his presence disarm.Looking upon him, every threat we outpace;A love irreplaceable as his charm.Continue reading “His Place”
Sunday’s Loves
A place built by hands not ours – He powers these short hoursIn which salvation flowers. Thereafter, we tend the child, our duty made but mildby hope of future fealty. Now laid to rest, we take hold of time free, rare as gold, When hearts to each other flee. After domestic relief, we conceiveOf anContinue reading “Sunday’s Loves”
Love or Euthanasia
My wife and I were recently sat in our living room enjoying some tea, and our conversation turned to her asking me a few questions about my return to Faith. She, having grown up in the Church, has had quite different experiences than I, and our conversation occasionally turns to these matters. It is alwaysContinue reading “Love or Euthanasia”
The Prodigal
Master, betrayed you not your own teachingTo keep our pearls in hand, away from swine?Perhaps you prepared for overreaching—A fault so unable to cause decline. Your gifts, us men trampled into the mud,Falling depraved into darkness profound;Not wholly cleansed even by raging flood,Begging for mere scrap, without any found. Returning home, no sacrifice to give—YouContinue reading “The Prodigal”
Love in the Search
For Ian, my profoundest teacher of this disposition To seek answers that may himself explain,Outward his eyes first gazed upon the world;He looked for indications to sustainA sense of self – which Being had unfurled. And yet, with Phaedrus, questioning the pow’rContained in this approach – the kósmon, whole,Ever beyond the grasp of men’s control.Continue reading “Love in the Search”
A Tension of Christian Life
Much of my time is spent on a university campus. To be a Christian in such a context often devolves into debates centered around merely speculative theology and philosophy, typically forwarded as a means of defending one’s faith. Especially in the broader culture of twenty-first-century North America – of which the universities are arguably theContinue reading “A Tension of Christian Life”
Hoping for Clarity 