Just returned from a pretty incredible trip to the Wagon Box Inn in the Wyoming wilderness. Below are some photos from my wanderings.
And of course, here are some weekend links, including pieces by three friends who were out there in the Wyoming wilderness with me. (We made the plunge into an icy creek at 8 a.m. on two consecutive days.)
Against Christian Nihilism: “The things God created are good. The Christian who can’t see that is less of a human for that fact. The heathen who enjoys the physical creation is more honoring to God than the puritan who doesn’t.”
Diogenes on Excellence and How to Be Unstoppably Happy: “Bulletproof happiness is achieved through a two-track process: Philosophy and training. Philosophy involves unconditional attack on error and hypocrisy. Training is the everyday practice of whatever philosophy reveals to be the truth of life.”
The Case for Christian Civilizationism: “I want a civilization Christianized not by mere laws or cultural artifacts, but by the genuine faith of the people who live there.”
When You Shouldn’t Take Every Thought Captive: “…OCD is the seventh most debilitating disease, and not just among psychiatric disorders but all diseases, including cancer, and asthma. It requires hours a day of the sufferer’s time to work through their obsessions and compulsions, and he or she is unable to be mentally engaged most of the time because it is so consuming. OCD means unwanted thoughts constantly coming, anxiety about these, and helplessness to just practice the obsession as a result of the anxiety.”
Why Christians Love Plutarch: “Plutarch was a pagan who catalogued the exploits of some of history’s most warlike, ambitious, and ruthless men. Yet so many die hard Plutarch fans I meet are Christians. Isn’t Christianity a religion that preaches peace, humility, and consideration for others? What explains the tension? It’s not a new phenomenon. In the 11th century, the Byzantine poet scholar John Mauropus lifted up a prayer for two pagans:
If any of the heathen, O my Christ,
You might from condemnation deign to save,
Then rescue Plato please, and Plutarch too:
For likewise in their doctrine and in morals,
Both men to your commandments are allied,
And true, though neither knew you to be God,
Yet, all that’s needed is your holy Grace,
Which saves the rest of our unworthy lot.
Εἴπερ τινὰς βούλοιο τῶν ἀλλοτρίων
τῆς σῆς ἀπειλῆς ἐξελέσθαι, Χριστέ μου,
Πλάτωνα καὶ Πλούταρχον ἐξέλοιό μοι·
ἄμφω γὰρ εἰσὶ καὶ λόγον καὶ τὸν τρόπον
τοῖς σοῖς νόμοις ἔγγιστα προσπεφυκότες.
εἰ δ’ ἠγνόησαν ὡς θεὸς σὺ τῶν ὅλων,
ἐνταῦθα τῆς σῆς χρηστότητος δεῖ μόνον,
δι’ ἣν ἅπαντας δωρεὰν σῴζειν θέλεις.”
Why You, Anon, Should Love NFL Football: “The NFL provides ultra-complex problem solving and high technology with physical excellence and extreme aggression. Actuarial calculations involving scoring, timeouts, and clock management that no coach, no matter how good, can make in their head. Probably why coaching jobs increasingly go to well-educated, high-energy young guys like Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel, who went to Yale.”
You Will Probably Die of a Cold:” Chernobyl did a lot to help the USSR fall. Covid is like Chernobyl if Chernobyl killed a hundred thousand times as many people, was successfully covered up, was given to the reactor director to clean up, resulted in every Soviet citizen even in Kamchatka having to wear a radiation mask for the next two years, hagiographic children’s books being written about the noble reactor director, and the USSR switching all its power generation to RBMK graphite-moderated reactors.”