May 1 is a significant day for socialists, pagans, and Christians. It is International Worker’s Day commemorating socialist strikes in Chicago on May 1, 1886. Among pre- and post-Christian pagans, May 1 is associated with Roman and Celtic festivals marking the end of the infertile winter half of the year and the burgeoning life-force of spring. May 1 is also the day that the Catholic Worker Movement began in 1933. On that date, Dorothy Day and others distributed The Catholic Worker newspaper to promote Catholic social teaching in Union Square, New York, during the socialist May Day march. In 1955 Pope Pius XII dedicated the day to Saint Joseph the Worker as patron saint for workers and those fighting communism. Continue Reading »

Not taking a position (neutrality) is often held up as an ideal in the social sciences in America. When covering politics with students, the argument runs that teachers must not allow them to see their political positions. Rather, the teacher should serve as a neutral presence that facilitates the expression of varying opinions and arguments in class. There is much to be said for this approach. It encourages students to think on their own and to realize that political and social questions do not often have simple answers. This ideal of neutrality also keeps discussions in class from devolving into simplistic Democrat versus Republican debates. Continue Reading »

My college intramural basketball team once played another team who were a bunch of thugs.  What they lacked in skill and elegance they made up for (almost) with sheer brute physicality.  When we played poorly against them in the first half, frustration and tempers got high.  In any sport, and certainly in basketball, one must maintain a certain inner calm in order to be effective, and what I particularly remember from that game was the grace I was given to be unruffled through continual mental prayer.  That experience has always seemed to me to be a good microcosm of the spiritual life: how awesome it would be to always go throughout the day in a continual prayer response to God.   Continue Reading »

“How have you experienced the grace of marriage?” A colleague at work recently asked me this question. She wanted me to come to her class on sacraments to share my experience. The depth of her question struck me. But I felt at a loss—so much experience of marriage lies in front of me yet. I have only been married four months, I thought. Still, I was intrigued. She said she would have an older couple visit her class after me; reassured by this, I accepted her request. Continue Reading »

It’s a real shame that the term “liberal” has fallen into a kind of desuetude in recent decades.  Outside of the “super-zips,” Social Scientist Charles Murray’s term for the urban zip codes dominated by elites, it’s getting harder and harder to find liberal-and-proud politician.  This might not be immediately obvious, since it is, after all, the elites who dominate American cultural institutions and media outlets, and they are overwhelmingly liberal.  But there are signs that the word “liberal” has more-or-less become a swear word for normal Americans.   Continue Reading »

On a clear day, the sun dazzles the prairie grasses that fall away to the horizon from the river-bluffs where I work. There is emptiness there, a desert without those distractions that can divide and stifle our spirits. There is a loneliness there that both attracts and frightens. One feels that out upon the windswept wastes most of the answers to life’s deep questions could be found if only one could be still and attentive long enough. The emptiness and the freedom of the prairies remind me of my humanity, of my vulnerability. They also remind me of the political implications of the longing to fill the vacuum within my heart. Continue Reading »

Nothing is more overrated than happiness.  Who wants to be happy anyway?  What we really want is for other people to think that we are happy, so they will envy us.  Or at least not pity us, which is about the most annoying thing in the whole world.  But when we actually are happy, it’s the biggest letdown of all.  When we are finally comfortable and have everything we want and know that no one could ask for more, then … all we find is a gnawing emptiness and the voice that whispers, “Is this all there is?  How pathetic.” Continue Reading »

If one lives in Texas, January is the month for planting sweet onions. I often think of my time there, sharing my grandmother’s house in a small town in the eastern part of the state called Flint. I worked the one-and-a-half acre field that had been cultivated by my grandfather for over ten years. He had died the year before, and his farm machinery lay about unused. I had never farmed before, but I wanted to make a little money doing good work that I would enjoy. I had the help of my grandfather’s old files, my grandmother’s memory, a local onion farmer, and my family, who had relocated from Michigan to be near Grandma. An adventure began in which I found myself alone with the land. Continue Reading »

The key to being a good liar is to have a story and to stick to it.  “Nothing happened.  I didn’t do it!” – so runs the form of all classic denials, from the four-year old punching her brother when her parents weren’t looking, to modern governments disclaiming responsibility for civilian casualties.  But when a denial of the consequences is immediately followed by a disclaimer of responsibility, it’s clearly a guilty conscience that’s speaking. Continue Reading »

When I speak a word, it is heard by those in my vicinity.  I can hush my voice to keep it a secret from those who are not immediately nearby.  I can amplify my voice to a whole crowd of people.  But after I say it, it is gone.  Only in the moment of my saying of it is my saying of it really there.  If it’s not tape-recorded, how can someone tell what I really said?  You have to go ask the people who heard me to testify to it.  But these testimonies will conflict: different people focused on different things, some people were distracted and missed parts of what I was saying, some people just heard me wrong.  Memories can differ and contradict each other without anybody actually lying. Continue Reading »