In the Face of Indifference: Thrive.

Do you remember the comedian Rodney Dangerfield? “I don’t get no respect” was his slogan, and it was a signal that he was about to tell us a very funny story in a sentence or two about his latest humiliation in the ongoing history of his ill treatment by the world. Hootie and the Blowfish may have been the rock version of Rodney. An executive at their own record company called their hit album that sold millions of copies and shot them into fame and fortune, “unreleasable.” Coming between grunge and the biggest wave of rap, critics panned them as uncool and worse.

Let me quote today's New York Times:

<<Even in the years before Hootie, an earnest and deceptively easygoing roots-rock band, became a global pop phenomenon, there were indignities. The South by Southwest festival turned them down, year after year. Record labels sent stiff rejection letters.>>

And now the sentence I love:

<<Still, Hootie persevered, thriving in the face of indifference.>>

There’s our sermon for today, brothers and sisters. There’s our slogan. You feel like Rodney and Hootie? You don’t get no respect? Persevere. Thrive in the face of indifference. The world ignores you? Persevere and thrive. You’re viewed as so very uncool? P&T. You’re different, you don’t fit in? You're trying something new? You're going against the grain? As my friend David Rendall says in his fun book The Freak Factor and now proclaims from stages around the world, what makes you weird may just make you wonderful, whether everybody else recognizes that or not. As one of the band says, “We didn’t wear the right clothes, we didn’t have the right look, we didn’t portray the right thing. And when you do that, you’re just going to get dogged.” Then he adds the magic: “We didn’t sell out. We were true to ourselves, you know?”

They had some hits and were big for a while and got plenty of criticism and then the world moved on. They pretty much disappeared. And now they’re back. And the New York Times is celebrating them with a huge article and proclaiming them always to have been very underrated. I think that’s right. And, as a philosopher, I’m sure that their distinctive inner attitude is underrated. Be yourself. Persevere. And in the face of indifference, yeah, that's right: Thrive.

For the article, click HERE.

Small and Great

Small is Beautiful: One of the most important insights any of us can have is that it's possible to live a truly heroic life on a small scale utterly outside the glaring, blaring global media complex, and to do lasting good for many of our fellow human beings, not in massive numbers and all at once, but over time, one by one.

There can be a special purity, a nobility, a distinct glory in the life of the small fish in the small pond who brightens up the prospects of each day and shows those in his or her proximity the wonder of greatness that can be and can thrive amid the ordinary run of things. This is where the real magic is.

One of my favorite characters in George Eliot’s deep and engaging novel Middlemarch begins the story full of promise, lives through various disappointments to her dreams, rises above the slings and arrows of her changing fortune, and finally, in the end, living in outwardly diminished circumstances, does her own form of wonderful good for her fellows in small and constant ways and clearly becomes the ultimate hero of the story. Eliot writes:

<<Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.>>

For Eliot’s magnificent novel, click HERE. Then, go do your own good in small and lasting ways on this precious day we’ve all been given.

The Lessons of Dracula

“I vant to drink your blood.” No, that’s not in the famous Bram Stoker book Dracula, nor is it necessarily the subtext of a certain contemporary individual’s political rallies that, nonetheless, do feature the color red. If you haven’t ever read Dracula, you’ve missed out on a great experience. It’s an extremely well done story, and it’s not even very explicit or gory, at least to a modern sensibility. It’s just an engaging suspense story.

I’ve come to think of classic literary monster tales as great metaphors for the most difficult challenges we face. You can find deep insight in Beowulf, in how he pursues and takes on the monsters, and in Mary Shelley’s great novel Frankenstein, in how the title character creates one.

In all these stories, in one way or another, we learn about the power of partnership and collaboration. That would be my main takeaway from the account of Count Dracula, who represents a great evil that can’t be defeated by any one person working alone, but can be confronted most effectively by a team of likeminded people in partnership. for a shared purpose. Interestingly, that was Aristotle’s account of what it takes for the greatest human goods. And the morals of the story for us are simple. Be willing to face any challenge. Don’t go it alone. Gather support from people you trust. Then, no matter how daunting the odds, you stand your best chance of success. I recently reported throughout social media on my reading this week of The Three Musketeers, Alexander Dumas’ wonderful romp amid swordsmen of seventeenth century France. The same lessons came through it as well, loud and clear.

Dracula is cleverly written as entries from various characters’ journals and letters and telegrams. But it’s so well done as to read smoothly and without any confusion. You sample various points of view in a way that enhances the drama and suspense.

My favorite actual quote may be: “As I came along the corridor I saw Mr. Morris looking out of a window.” (248)

Other notable reminders:

“We learn from failure, not success!” (129)

“Oh, friend John, it is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and troubles,; and yet when King Laugh come, he makes them all dance to the tune he play.” (188)

Here was my own pet lunatic—the most pronounced of his type that I had ever met with—talking elemental philosophy, and with the manner of a polished gentleman. (251)

“He is finite, though he is powerful to do much harm and suffers not as we do. But we are strong, each in our purpose; and we are all more strong together.” (337-338)

It is really wonderful how much resilience there is in human nature. (344)

“Friend John, to you with so much of experience already—and you too, dear Madam Mina, that are young—here is a lesson: do not ever fear to think.” (364)

And, too, it made me think of the wonderful power of money! What can it not do when it is properly applied; and what might it do when basely used! (381)

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Wisdom and Energy

Toward the end of Thomas Hardy’s wild and wonderful story, The Mayor of Casterbridge, the title character reflects on what he’s come to think of as a trick the gods play on us: When we’re old enough to have the wisdom to do great things, we no longer have the energy it takes to do them. And thus the big things we need most rarely get accomplished by us.

We can call this phenomenon the principle of “Wisdom-Energy Age Reversal,” or WEAR.

In our youth, we’re full of energy, or what Hardy refers to as “zest,” but we have very little worldly wisdom to guide our abundant capacity to act. Then, by the time that many decades of experience may have schooled us well in the ways of wisdom, we lack our early measure of energy to achieve the things we have come to see would be great. This is why so many of the big things that do get accomplished in the world seem to lack an appropriate measure of wisdom, and why the old and wise among us are much more apt just to critique and complain than to actually rectify the many wrongs around us. It's a principle that indirectly counsels us to enter into partnerships and collaborations that span the spectrum of age.

I love Hardy’s books, largely for his characters and his masterful storytelling. But he’s often thought of as a pessimist, and this principle on wisdom and age can explain at least a portion of that worldview. Given the fact that he wrote a century and a half ago, I’d say that this part of his philosophy at least might be said to WEAR well, on into our day.

For a truly enchanting story that displays the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune as food for thought and that shows, among many other things, how secrets and lies never provide a sound path in life, read this delightful book.

To find it, click HERE.

The Wrong Road to Success

A Sentimental Education.

Decently smart people can do indecently stupid things. An intelligent and attractive young man from a country town near Paris moves to the city to find wealth, fame, and love. But it never seems to occur to him that he might have to do or be something of merit in order to deserve any of these things.

Frederic Moreau becomes a clever manipulator of others to further his own aims, and demonstrates what a life is like with no inner core or reliable sense of what’s right. He’s fickle, undependable, and greedy. He falls in love with a married woman more than once and finds himself living parallel secret lives with his various lady friends, all in his efforts to advance his own interests in fortune and status. Revolutionary events begin to swirl around him and it’s never certain who can be trusted. Ambition drives everyone else in his circles as much as it does him. Lust and despair alternate in his life, causing giddiness one minute, and grim hopelessness the next. When he does come into money, he wastes it on showy extravagances to impress those around him as he seeks to heal an inner need that can never be satisfied in such a way.

At the end of the story, he sits with his one remaining friend, the companion of his youth who had become a lawyer in order to prevail in politics, and they reflect on their lives.

<<They'd both been failures, the one who'd dreamed of Love and the one who'd dreamed of Power. How had it come about?

"Perhaps it was lack of perseverance?" said Frederic.

"For you maybe. For me, it was the other way round, I was too rigid, I didn't take into account a hundred and one smaller things that are more crucial than all the rest. I was too logical and you were too sentimental."

Then they blamed it on their bad luck, the circumstances, the times in which they'd been born.>> (462)

Frederic never came to realize the inner man he had neglected to his own great detriment. He never understood the role of character or true commitment in life or love. And in that blind spot, he prefigures many in our own time.

The Ambiguities of Language

I was googling something about top public speakers today, focusing on various popular keynote speakers (my competition), and came across a Google question on my screen that gave me pause:

<<What are the best small speakers?>>

I thought, "Really? That's a thing?" I had instant visions of little people on stages all over America. I remembered one five year old boy in the news years ago who was a fiery gospel preacher.

Then I suddenly realized I had transitioned into the audio/stereo section of Google Results. Oh, Ok. Speakers. Yeah, I see. Klipsch. JBL. Sony.

And of course, this happens all the time in business and life. We hear something different from what was intended and then we keep running down that path without checking to make sure we heard it right or interpreted it as it was intended. Natural languages are useful tools, and are among the most useful we have. But we have to be aware of how we're using our words, and of how others might be using theirs. Context can be misleading. Perhaps even the smallest of speakers would urge caution as another useful tool.

The Courage to Be.

In 1975, my next door neighbor Paul was a very famous architect, a graduate of Harvard, the University of Berlin, and the Bauhaus. He was in his 70s and an avid skier. He was a handsome man in great shape and with a lively mind. I had seen his homes in books of modern architecture.

I would go visit him frequently. He asked to borrow my books about Wittgenstein. We loved to sit and talk philosophy and modern design. I liked to play on his tennis court. My wife and I took care of his chickens when he and his young Chinese wife traveled. They lived in an old New England farmhouse that had been added onto time after time. It was an architectural mess. He was an architectural marvel. And he was my favorite unofficial mentor.

But then we had to move out of the one bedroom "mother in law" apartment in the big house where we lived outside New Haven. The husband of the family owning the home had disappeared for a year, only to show up one day in a crazy disguise. I didn't recognize him at all, but his kids yelled out "Daddy!" Weeks later, men in dark suits and Ford LTDs arrived to take boxes of things out of his part of the home. And soon, we had to move a mile away.

I later heard that Paul had been diagnosed with cancer. I tried to figure out what to say to him before I visited. I couldn't come up with anything. I was afraid to visit without good words for him. I thought I had to have answers. I postponed seeing him. I procrastinated. I was busy. I was in graduate school at Yale. I thought of him often, and put off what I thought would be a very awkward visit to a man who had been so full of life. Then someone told me he had died. Waiting for words was one of the worst mistakes I had ever made.

Don't wait for words. Don't wait for answers. Go to people in need and just show you care, words or not. People need love more than answers. People need you.

Sorry, Paul. I was an idiot. Actually, I was a coward. But I didn't understand that at all. I do now. And I've developed a little more courage, the essential courage to just go forth and be. I don’t have to have all the answers. But I do have this one. And now, all these years later. I have the courage to admit my weakness and to say thanks for the lesson. I still love you, man. I finally realize what it takes to show that to others.

Synchronicity

Synchronicity: Just the right thing at the right time.

We often mean by this something like the sudden and meaningful intersection of otherwise apparently unrelated causal streams of events to provide needed help or insight at an important time. A God wink, some say. It could be a small thing or a big one. It could be encouraging or revelatory or both. It could help you along the way, or stop you right before the brink of a cliff. It might lead you to a new path, or keep you on the one you've been walking, despite a time of adversity and pain.

Meaningful coincidences. Do you have any of these in your life story? Have you ever experienced synchronicity, where the right thing happens improbably at just the right time? Or do you experience such things a lot?

I'm starting to think about this more. Let me know if you have this phenomenon in your life.

Mistakes and Transformations

Subtitle: The Heroic Hester Prynne

Have you ever read Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel, The Scarlet Letter? Some of us may have read it in school, before we were prepared to squeeze all the wisdom like a great juice out of it.

I just read it anew, and was amazed. I had just enjoyed Hawthorne's other well known story, The House of the Seven Gables, a couple of weeks ago, and I have to admit that I didn't look forward to The Scarlet Letter, fearing a bit that it would be a dull moralistic tale. But I was so very wrong. Hawthorne is a keen observer of human nature, and a real philosopher.

The book dives deep into such issues as morality and hypocrisy, shame and courage, vengeance and forgiveness, self identity and redemption, and does so in ways that relate to each of us now, in our own time and lives. Hester Prynne, publicly shamed sinner, ends up being the hero of the story, displaying great inner strength and our deep ability to do good for others, despite how they might despise us in return. Our own alchemy can then in the end work surprising transformations in the lives of those others. Mistakes can be woven into the cloth of success for ourselves and others.

It's a great, great book. Some random quotes.

Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. (14)

Mighty was their fuss about little matters, and marvellous, sometimes, the obtuseness that allowed greater ones to slip between their fingers! (16)

It is a good lesson—though it may often be a hard one—for a man who has dreamed of literary fame, and of making for himself a rank among the world’s dignitaries by such means, to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognized and to find how utterly devoid of significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves, and all he aims at. (25)

The page of life that was spread out before me seemed dull and commonplace only because I had not fathomed its deeper import. (34)

When an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be deceived. (110)

It is the unspeakable misery of a life so false as his, that it steals the pith and substance out of whatever realities there are around us, and which were meant by Heaven to be the spirit’s joy and nutriment. To the untrue man, the whole universe is false,—it is impalpable,—it shrinks to nothing within his grasp. And he himself, in so far as he shows himself in a false light, becomes a shadow, or, indeed, ceases to exist. (128)

"Then I consented to a deception. But a lie is never good, even though death threaten on the other side!" (169)

And, as Hester Prynne had no selfish ends, nor lived in any measure for her own profit and enjoyment, people brought all their sorrows and perplexities, and besought her counsel, as one who had herself gone through a mighty trouble. (227)

My page numbers are from the Barnes and Noble edition, but for an easily accessible edition, click HERE.

Noble Failures

Sometimes, we fail through no fault of our own. We try something and it doesn’t go as planned. It may be the overall economic environment, or local conditions. Or it could be that the enterprise is undermined by someone with money and connections whose plans are contrary to our own.

This is the aspect of our common condition explored in the delightful little novel, The Bookshop, written by Penelope Fitzgerald, a British lady who first published, I believe, at the age of 60 and went on to win several awards for her short books, including the prestigious Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

I happened across this gem at Costco, where I was loitering after the purchase of three forty-two pound bags of kitty litter and pondering the wisdom of trying a $7.99 bottle of Kirkland Bordeaux with a beautiful black label. I got the book instead. It was more pleasant that I reasonably could have expected with the Bordeaux.

It’s about a lady who opens a book store in a damp old haunted house in a small town on the coast of England, a place that hasn’t had a bookshop before.

I offer here some nearly random free samples, which you won’t get with the Bordeaux, although, there were some tiny sausages being cooked up and offered for tasting in another part of the store. Our lady referred to below is a Ms. Florence Green.

She drank some of the champagne, and the smaller worries of the day seemed to stream upwards as tiny pinpricks through the golden mouthfuls and to break harmlessly and vanish. (20)

Will power is useless without a sense of direction. (37)

Back in the shadows went the Stickers, largely philosophy and poetry, which she had little hope of ever seeing the last of. (43)

He might be grievously disappointed, possibly after a lifetime of disappointments. (92)

“Understanding makes the mind lazy.” (101)

She looked with shame at the rows of patiently waiting unsold books. “You’re working too hard, Florence,” Milo said.

“I try to concentrate—Put those down, they’ve only just come in and I haven’t checked them. Surely you have to succeed, if you give everything you’ve got.”

“I can’t see why. Everyone has to give everything they have eventually. They have to die. Dying can’t be called a success.” (133)

For the book, CLICK HERE. And enjoy. Cheers.

The Power of Emptiness

Sometimes, when you face a fraught situation or a complex problem and feel like you need to think about it more and harder, what you should do instead is stop thinking at all.

Clear your head. Get out of your own way. Let it go. Empty yourself. Create room for the needed insight to arrive. And then, perhaps, as if by magic, just the idea you've sought may come your way, and without all the effort you would otherwise have expended in vain.

A Short Dog Tale

The World as It Is. A car sped down a rural road and what looked like trash was thrown from the window. The farmer mowing nearby stopped his work and walked over to pick up whatever paper had been thrown into his field so that the mower wouldn't shred and spread it everywhere. It wasn’t paper, but a puppy just a few weeks old, covered with bruises and now with a newly broken tail. The astonished man picked him up and took him home. A friend of his sent a picture to a friend of mine named Doug who immediately adopted him and called him Miller. That was two years ago.

Recently, Doug and Miller were at Lowe's Hardware and Miller pulled hard at his leash to get to a lady standing near an end-cap. Doug pulled him back in surprise. It was odd behavior for the ordinarily well behaved dog. They found their item and got in line. Miller pulled again and this time moved around behind Doug, who then turned to see what was going on. It was the same lady. Miller was instantly sitting next to her with his head leaning on her leg. She was crying.

"I'm so sorry." Doug had no idea what was going on.

"No, no. I had to put my dog to sleep a few hours ago."

Dogs know a lot more than we think. They understand and feel in ways we sometimes can’t even imagine. Honor the animals in your life.

And maybe ask them, "How's the stock market going to do tomorrow?" And let me know.

The opening picture above is of the puppy himself on his first trip to the vet! And now two years later, the comforter: A truly good dog.

What I do.

“One of the most properly human studies is the study of what is most properly human.”

- My last waking thought before sleep.

Last night, I was almost asleep, but my mind was trying to figure out the right category for what I’ve been doing in my work for the last twenty five years. In philosophy, you’re always working in a sub-discipline. It’s the same in other academic specialties. In physics, you might be working in particle physics, on the very small, or in cosmology or astrophysics, studying the very large. In philosophy, you might work mainly in metaphysics, examining the ultimate structure of reality, or epistemology, focused on the nature of belief and knowledge, or in ethics, or aesthetics, or social and political philosophy, or logic, or the philosophy of language, the philosophy of science, or the philosophy of law. For my first two decades as a committed philosopher, encompassing graduate school at Yale and my job at Notre Dame, I was working in the philosophy of religion and philosophical theology. And it was a great experience. But I came to feel a new sense of calling, to a new adventure of ideas, and since then, I’ve been on a quest to discover the practical side of philosophy that relates to life and work in the world.

It was odd. There seemed to be no set label for what I’ve been doing. I’ve often said I was working in practical philosophy, but that’s really just a big part of what I do. I discover conceptual tools we can use all the time. But there is more to it. And then last night, right before sleep would have claimed my thoughts and transitioned me into the realm of dreams, where anything can happen and I might find myself flying in a helicopter over my home, which took up one part of the evening, or saving the world from a terrorist plot (a task that occasionally requires far too much of my attempted slumber). But right before the light of normal consciousness would go out for the night, it occurred to me that I am creating, or rediscovering and perhaps naming, an ancient domain of philosophical concern, based on the search for wisdom that has to do with every major aspect of human life this world. What I do is philosophical anthropology.

For centuries, nearly every serious philosopher did it. Much of Aristotle’s Ethics is actually philosophical anthropology. And the stoics are known for it. Seneca wrote essays on happiness and anger and solitude and grief and success. Emperor Marcus Aurelius is an exemplar of it. So is Ralph Waldo Emerson. But there are many others who have done this in the past. When I began to do it in the late 1980s, I couldn’t find any other contemporary philosophers who seemed to be on the same quest. I was alone in the wilderness without a map or a compass. But there is an excitement about being an explorer, and perhaps a bit of a pioneer. I had enjoyed a measure of that feeling in my first specialty, when I was a young philosopher right out of grad school. No serious philosophers had been working on distinctively Christian topics for a very long time, and while studying the incarnation myself, I urged on others to join me and tackle such issues as the trinity, the atonement, redemption, sanctification, distinct Christian ideas of God, and on and on. The terrain of my new calling in philosophical anthropology was quite different. I now studied such things as success and partnership and happiness, greatness and failure and leadership. And each topic opened up into many more. I flew by the seat of my pants. I followed my nose. But that juxtaposition sounds strange. My pants had no aroma whatsoever, I should quickly assure you. I slashed at the underbrush to clear a trail. Yeah, we'll go with that metaphor. It was a vast wilderness where well trained philosophers seemed to have abandoned camp, but it had been taken over by pop psychologists, and motivational speakers, and a great many flimflam men.

There was counterfeit wisdom everywhere. My job was to be a detective and dig deep and discover what’s real, while rejecting the bogus and careless and false. And in the past few years, I’ve seen more philosophers begin to come back into the area. Most who have done it take a historical approach and study the stoics, or some other past source of wisdom on our general life adventure. My process has been different. I consult as much of history as possible, and dig into great literature as much as I analyze explicitly philosophical tomes of the past. But I also talk to real people in every walk of life, in every sort of work, across economic and social levels, and facing nearly every issue of our day. As a result of over a thousand public presentations, and often working with audience members afterwards, I’ve come to hear people’s hopes and dreams and worries and fears. I’ve seen magnificent success and terrible tragedy, abject failure and deep joy, meaning and suffering, foolishness and wisdom that might surprise you. And that has put me in a distinctive place to make a difference for more people in our time. It’s the greatest ride ever. And I’m glad that you read little bits and pieces here of what I’m discovering and thinking day to day, like this. Thanks for joining me in the adventure.

Faith, Hope, and Love

Faith, Hope, and Love. And the greatest of these is Love. - Paul, getting it right. First Corinthians, 13:13.

I had a professor in college who talked a lot about seeing with the eyes of faith. We need more of that. Not the talking part. The seeing.

We also need to see with the eyes of hope. And that's hard sometimes. But to the degree it's hard, it's necessary.

And we most of all need to see with the eyes of love. View the people and things around you from the best and highest divine perspective. Appropriate a sliver of God's Love for us. Let it reflect and refract through your own interpretations, infusing them and lifting them up. See others in such a way as to lift them up. See yourself that way.

Seeing through the eyes of faith, hope, and love is definitely better for those who manage it. It's better for the world whenever any of us does it. And it gives a wonderful example to others. The eyes of faith. The eyes of hope. The eyes of love.

Happy New Eyes.

Hills, Valleys, and Hope

If I recall him correctly, the absurdly prolix philosopher Hegel posited that history proceeds by a dynamic undulation of thesis, antithesis, and then synthesis: One extreme arises, then an equal and opposite extreme crops up, when next a mediating compromise comes to be. And it all then repeats.

Some simply speak of history being a pendulum swing, from one outrageous excess to its opposite, and then back and forth. There are cycles. There are seasons. Others who talk of hills and valleys suggest that when we find ourselves in a deep valley, we should prepare for our ascent up the next hill.

We are now in a deep valley. So it's a time to prepare and plan and look forward with that most threatened and resilient of human qualities, hope. But hope, in its fullness, isn't a passive fantasy or a refusal to be realistic; it's an active goad to real action. So in this season, in this cycle, in this antithesis and far end of the pendulum swing, have hope. And begin to think of how you will help us all to climb the next hill, where we may be able to see a new sunrise on its way.

The Quest for More

A Thought While Reading a Book on Aristotle’s Understanding of Happiness:

It seems to be distinctive of human beings that we are always in search of more: More money, more affection, more success, more status, more love, more accolades, more stuff. Even those who praise simple living and seek to find new ways to simplify their lives, and who seem by contrast to live in pursuit of less, are really often in their own manner on the lookout for more—more ways to trim and cut and do without, always seeking novel ideas for living with less and less. It’s for them even a quest for more less.

It's a temptation to think there's something intrinsically wrong with the desire for more, as if it bespeaks a discontent of the soul. But what would ever be wrong with a desire for more wisdom, more growth, more chances to do something good, more spiritual depth, more opportunities to show real love? What's needed is discernment. What are healthy needs for more, and what aren't? A wise and good life finds the right balance of more and less, more or less.

Lessons on Life

I just finished my second reading of a wondrous and even numinous book, Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead. I loved it in 2004. I got much more out of it on this second time through.

An older minister in the small town of Gilead, Iowa has a young son through an unexpected second marriage. His first wife died in childbirth, and the baby also passed shortly afterwards. Decades later, in his sixties, he unexpectedly married a younger woman and then had a child, a son, when he was about the age of seventy. The book is a long letter he’s writing this boy in his sixth year, sharing his life and insights in a way that he is sure time will prevent his doing in person. He has serious heart trouble and may be in his last days. So it’s important to him, even urgent, to get into this letter anything he’d want to share with his son when the boy is older and can use some guidance about the deeper things in life, as well as on some of the simpler and most magical things.

Our writer, the Reverend John Ames is worried about a younger man who has come back to town after many years away. He is the son of the reverend's best friend, and as such begins to visit Ames' home, play with his son, and talk with his younger wife in overtly friendly ways. The wife and son seem utterly charmed by this charismatic guest. But Ames knows that in the man's adolescence, he displayed terribly bad behavior and morally irresponsible ways. And now our writer wonders what his intentions are toward his young wife and new son. This inner struggle intrudes itself into the overall flow of the work in fascinating ways, and ends up giving us one of the biggest revelations of the book that may be needed in our own lives. But so as not to ruin the suspense, I won’t mention what it is, except to say that it took me back to a theme in many of Jane Austin’s stories, and in the New Testament, and in a vivid and powerful way.

I’ll share some other sample passages, while recommending the book to you strongly, as a joy and potentially transformative read.

On writing:

“For me writing has always felt like praying, even when I wasn’t writing prayers, as I was often enough.” (19)

On Ego:

When the Lord says “You must become as one of these little ones,” I take him to mean you must be stripped of all the accretions of smugness and pretense and triviality. (30)

On Making the Most of Life:

When my father found his father at Mount Pleasant after the war ended, he was shocked at first to see how he had been wounded. In fact, he was speechless. So my grandfather’s first words to his son were, “I am confident that I will find great blessing in it.” And that was what he said about everything that happened to him for the rest of his life, all of which tended to be more or less drastic. (35-36)

On Philosophy:

I got pretty good at pretending I understood more than I did, a skill which has served me throughout life. … I get much more respect than I deserve. (39)

On the Luminous Reality of People:

When people come to speak to me, whatever they say, I am struck by a kind of incandescence in them, the “I” whose predicate can be “love” or “fear” or “want,” and whose object can be “someone” or “nothing” and it won’t really matter, because the loveliness is just in that presence, shaped around “I” like a flame on a wick, emanating itself in grief and guilt and joy and whatever else. But quick, and avid, and resourceful. To see this aspect of life is a privilege of the ministry which is seldom mentioned. (44-45)

On the Human Face:

Any human face is a claim on you, because you can’t help but understand the singularity of it, the courage and loneliness of it. (66)

On Our Flaws:

These people who can see right through you never quite do you justice, because they never give you credit for the effort you’re making to be better than you actually are, which is difficult and well meant and deserving of some little notice. (98)

On What We Now Call Covetousness:

I believe the sin of covetise is that pang of resentment you may feel when even the people you love best have what you want and don’t have. (134)

And later:

I don’t know exactly what covetise is, but in my experience it is not so much desiring someone else’s virtue or happiness as rejecting it, taking offense at the beauty of it. (188)

On Forgiveness and the Parable of the Prodigal Son:

It says Jesus puts His hearer in the role of the father, or of the one who forgives. Because if we are, so to speak, the debtor (and of course we are that, too), that suggests no graciousness in us. And grace is the great gift. So to be forgiven is only half the gift. The other half is that we can also forgive, restore, and liberate, and therefore we can feel the will of God enacted through us, which is the great restoration of ourselves to ourselves.

On Adulthood and Enjoyment:

Adulthood is a wonderful thing, and brief. You must be sure to enjoy it while it lasts. (166)

For the amazing book click HERE.

The Piano Tuner

Adventure. The new. The unknown. Courage. Discovery. Personal Transformation. What people seem to be and what they truly are. These are some of the unexpected themes in a wondrous book I just discovered and read, called The Piano Tuner and written by Daniel Mason, published by Knopf in 2002.

The story takes place in the 1880s. The British are fighting to subdue Burma. A brilliant surgeon takes up residence in a remote fort, a small beautiful village, really, far from civilization, and seems to have uncanny success in bringing peace to the area of warring tribes. He leverages his success to request that the government send him an Erard piano, which is shipped and carried to him against all odds. But a piano in the jungle will have problems. So he asks for a piano tuner from London to come repair it. Thus our story begins.

What was supposed to be a three month trip from London to upper Burma solely for the purpose of fixing and tuning a rare piano turns into so much more than a brief writeup could even hint at. It’s a remarkable book on the human spirit, music, beauty, and the uncertain journeys of life.

Do yourself a favor: Grab it! Read it!

For the book on Amazon, click HERE.

A Dose of Goodness

I just finished reading Willa Cather's novel, My Antonia for the first time. It's rare that I close a book with tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat. The story, first published in 1918, is about a group of friends and neighbors in a small farming community in the Nebraska prairie during the nineteenth century. But more that that, it's a book about the beauties, wonders, sorrows, and transporting, transient joys of life that, paradoxically, can form us forever.

In our time of public ugliness and strife, it's nearly magical to be transported to a simpler time and place, and welcomed into lives that can remind us all of the most elemental possibilities for goodness in the world.

For the novel, click https://amzn.to/2CWjcuo

My Morehead-Cain Weekend

I had a weekend with the most remarkable people. It was the 8th triennial Morehead-Cain Forum, bringing together over 700 Morehead-Cain Scholars from across the nation and around the world. Originally funded by John Motley Morehead III of Union Carbide fame, the Morehead-Cain Foundation exists to bring great students to UNC Chapel Hill and pay all their expenses, launching them into summer adventures and building them up during the academic year as the people they're capable of being.

No one in my family before me had ever been to college. We had farmers, truck drivers, and mechanics in the family. I grew up in an 800 square foot rented house on a street that had ditches rather than sidewalks. It seemed that most everyone on the street worked for one of the two tobacco companies in town, Liggett and Meyers or The American Tobacco Company. The dads came home in their khaki uniforms at the end of the day, weary of work and ready to rest. Durham High School nominated me for what at the time was called simply The Morehead Scholarship, now The Morehead-Cain, and I went through a local interview, a regional, and a final interview with prominent people in business, government, the military, and academia asking me hard questions about myself, my plans, and my world. My mother told me there was no money for college. The scholarship paid for everything, absolutely every expense I had, and being a Morehead got me a free six years of graduate school and a double Ph.D. at Yale, which led to a teaching career at Notre Dame and an unexpected adventure after that as a public philosopher, worldwide. Not bad for a poor kid who had been facing extremely limited prospects, and due to the trust put in me by the great people of the Morehead-Cain.

Every three years, we Morehead-Cains have an amazing weekend together full of talks and panel discussions, impromptu conversations that are utterly mind-blowing, and incredible meals. Last year, we ate dinner on center court of the Dean Dome and one of our group who founded Ancestry.com spoke, right before another of our cohort, a wonderful Broadway performer, sang. This year for our Saturday night dinner, we completely took over the UNC Football Stadium, ate in the Blue Zone where all the donors and celebrities and top leaders watch games through the huge glass walls, and then we went out into the stadium under a clear Carolina Sky in the crisp of the evening to hear another of our Morehead-Cain cousins, as we now fondly refer to each other, NC Governor Roy Cooper, speak about public service, right before a band of more cousins performed. Coop, as expected, was funny, energetic, and inspiring.

The 2018 weekend as always was full of wonder. I got to hang out with people who have made major contributions to almost every facet of modern life, across industries and nations. One old friend is about to revolutionize safety margins in medicine. Another cousin as a young woman had ridden a bicycle across Asia and some of the middle east, over closed borders and through forbidden wastelands and she lived to tell the tale. The cuz next to me at dinner told me about his 3,300 jumps out of airplanes and his subsequent heart attack. I would have had 3,300 heart attacks. Entering the men's room, a young man came up to me to say, "I read everything you write on Twitter and really love it!" I asked his name and occupation. Global Research and Optimization for Twitter. Well, then. A wonderful couple called me over to their table at another meal, and then another later in the weekend. He's the Chief Product Officer for GoDaddy, the people who host my websites, and most of the world's websites. I met a young cousin who is bringing baseball to Egypt for the first time. He showed me a picture of kids swinging bats in front of the Pyramids. I met a man whose house was built in the 13th century, but whose barn goes back much farther in time. I walked across campus and talked and laughed for half an hour with one of the most creative television directors in England, who tried to film his new comedy about Brits moving to Florida in my own town of Wilmington NC, but it was too expensive for their production budget. It turned out that it was cheaper to recreate Florida in Southern Spain. I talked to the Editor of Outside Magazine about her history of selling stories to Netflix and other movie and TV companies. I had a whirlwind conversation with a UNC senior who says she wants to solve global warming. And I think she might be able to.

And then, as in all the other Forum Weekends I've attended over the past twenty-some years, I got to give the closing talk for this magical weekend, to all those astounding people, which itself was an out of this world experience. And afterwards, on the drive home, in the words of the narrator in Willa Cather's novel, My Antonia, "I was left alone with this new feeling of lightness and content."

The young man, Jim Burden, goes on to say:

"I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep." (pages 19 and 20).

Amen. And it's a bonus to be a part of something entire that partakes of sun and air and goodness and knowledge while we're here. May more of us find communities of the like minded who can help us flourish, be our best, do our best, and experience that elusive state of dissolving and yet also empowering soul flourishing we often call happiness.

For more Willa Cather: https://amzn.to/2CWjcuo