Making Bread and the Small Marvels of Homemaking
It is an everyday miracle to make sourdough bread. From water, flour, a little salt, and natural yeast growing quietly in a […]
The Simplicity of Distance
Caryll Houselander includes in her mesmerizing illustrations of My Path to Heaven a mountain on which a child climbs stairways to be […]
Practically Speaking: To Reclaim Order Begin with the Kitchen Sink
In the vicissitudes of life, there are patterns of accumulating order and destruction at play in every stage. Forever forward progress in […]
Teaching By Example: Does it Actually Work?
Childrearing is often treated in our culture as a competitive sport. Parents become overinvolved coaches running drills. The relationship between parent and […]
Surprisingly good life advice from child predators
Some social groups seem less likely to offer sound principles for living the good life than others. High on the list of […]
Common sense and sense experience
The socially acceptable posture in life these days is perpetual waiting: waiting for the relevant studies to emerge before making a decision. […]
The indulgence of self-loathing and William Blake’s “mind-forg’d manacles”
Recognizing oneself as inadequate and unsatisfactory has an appealing allure of maturity and self-awareness, but it is childish indulgence. Everyone knows people […]
Practically Speaking: St. Edith Stein on the Emotional Power of Objective Work
Edith Stein, also known by her religious name Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, offered penetrating observations about women—with their capacity for […]
Toward order: Holly Pierlot’s “A Mother’s Rule of Life”
The movement from chaos to order is often not a decisive, once-and-for-all decision. Instead, there is a plodding course from disorder and […]
Practically Speaking: What to do when you’re angry
Women’s anger has become an influential commodity in the post-modern world. Measures of women’s happiness are declining decade over decade, and “liberated” […]