6+ hour, 46+ min ago  (1847+ words) What follows is a slightly edited version of my keynote address for the Tulsa Lit-Fest, April 2026. I begin with M. Scott Momaday: Once in his life a man ought to concentrate his mind upon the remembered earth ". He ought to give…...

2+ day, 6+ hour ago  (275+ words) Creative dialogue is the main remedy against the dictate of fanaticism Pushkin was not simply voicing his idiosyncratic dissatisfaction with village life. He comes to understand historical figures as rising in opposition to their epochs. On this view, conflict proves…...

3+ day, 6+ hour ago  (382+ words) To better name the ways that an encounter with another can open our vision, let me turn to the source of my guiding metaphor, namely, the "Slant of light" from Dickinson's poem #258, here quoted in its entirety: There's a certain…...

1+ week, 6+ day ago  (788+ words) We bemoan the idea that this generation may not be as materially rich as its parents but downplay the pressures on resources caused by the proliferation of material wealth, the crime fueled by our addictions, plastic and narcotic, and the…...

2+ week, 1+ day ago  (414+ words) I did school online before it was cool. In the earliest decades of the modern homeschooling movement, such classes would have been unimaginable'not only because the technology for them didn't yet exist, but because homeschooling's dubious legal status made such…...

2+ week, 3+ day ago  (209+ words) Magnifca Huamanitas is many things, the majority of which I'm not qualified to address. In this brief reflection, I'll limit myself to a few areas with which some of my own work overlaps, offer a critique, and then consider what…...

2+ week, 6+ day ago  (138+ words) Image Credit: Robert S. Duncanson'Blue Hole, Flood Waters, Little Miami River" (1851) Nathan Beacom writes on agriculture and the environment. His writing has appeared in Comment Magazine, America, The Des Moines Register, and elsewhere. In an article at The American Conservative, Arthur…...

3+ week, 6+ hour ago  (315+ words) Yet competing with it is exactly what Pope Leo is asking us to do. In the section "Building for the common good," Pope Leo calls for accepting the limits and weakness of humanity without considering them an error to be…...

3+ week, 1+ day ago  (152+ words) Andrew Mercer serves as Theologian-in-Residence at the O'Reilly Catholic Student Center in Springfield, Missouri. He is also an adjunct instructor at both Missouri State University and Saint Louis University. He holds a Ph D in Religious Studies from Southern Methodist…...

3+ week, 6+ day ago  (447+ words) This is first of a series of essays we're running that respond to Magnifica Humanitas. To develop a different imagination, CST employs one foundation and several principles (sometimes called themes). The first half of Magnifica Humanitas reviews these central ideas....