The Path to Sainthood

There are three different ways to become a saint, each indicating something different about the individual involved. If the purpose of reading saints’ lives is to be inspired to live well and become a better person, some of these paths are more applicable to a modern context (at least in America) than others. First, there…

Perfection and Holiness

Asceticism and hermitism have fascinated me for a long time, (which might surprise those who know me as a convivial, gregarious person who loves an audience). Judaism’s focus on community are largely incompatible with such practices, so I’m not sure where the interest comes from, but I think it’s a combination of feeling daunted by…

Power and Identity

Project status update: I realized I’ve been doing this reading project for over three years; I’ve read 60 books, done write-ups on 13, and am over halfway through one side of one floor of the library. At this rate it would take me another 40 years. Time to pick up the pace. Yvonne Chireau’s Black…

Individualism and Community

I really enjoy being a part of a University community. Even though I’m staff and not faculty, I like the sense of shared purpose, identity, and value of knowledge that it implies and conveys. At the same time, I often want to think/exist as an individual, and believe that mindlessly accepting communal ideals is an…

What do you believe?

I’d been curious about Augustine’s Confessions since reading the argument for Augustine as the first self-aware/introspective author laid out in “How the Irish Saved Civilization.” He is self-reflective, but also so focused on identifying orthodoxy (and refuting paganism/other heresies) that even his autobiographical elements feel driven by an argument or agenda. It seems to me…