Finding One's Place in the World

I am tired of being told that I can be whatever I want to be.
I am tired of hearing that I can make my own way. I do not want that.

"You grow into your real adulthood and wholeness and selfhood by learning the steps in the dance. The dance is there.

It is already choreographed. The music is playing. All creatures--all stars, all archangels, all lions and eagles and oak trees and oceans and grasshoppers--all are dancing, and the great thing is to learn the steps and move into your place."¹

That is what I want.

The world is not a vast, teeming chaos. It is a vast, teeming cosmos. In the Greek, an order. In that order, virtue is not a thing "of use to society." Virtue is human excellence--the highest and best of which we are capable.

I want to find my place in the world and in community, not to be an island. Silly democratic moderns.

"What we human beings need, Lewis would urge, is not the blazing of new trails but the grace to walk the well-trodden trails well."

Amen.

1The quote is from Thomas Howard's essay, "The Moral Mythology of C.S. Lewis," which can be found on this page, or directly here.

Article on Obama's Economy by VDH

Victor Davis Hanson, eminent historian and classicist, wrote the following article. I suggest you take five minutes to read it--you won't be disappointed.


http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YTIzOTg4NjNmNmZjZTkxMTRkYmJkMDFlY2I5ZmQwOWQ=&w=MA==

Iustitia Sub Lege: The Supreme Court Building

In my two months here, I have grown used to walking Capitol Hill. It is surprising how mundane and tangible the "halls of power" are. I searched for the right word for months, but yesterday, I found its perfect descriptor: "Not-sacred."

I do not mean to say that the Hill is secular, or any other adjective opposite to sacred. I mean to say that my conception of the seat of our people is this:

It should be a ley line of gravity and wisdom, to be walked in and spoken of with reverence. DC, I have found, is not so. The Capitol rings with the shouts of children and the chatter of tourists. This is not wrong. The House and Senate office buildings are, to be sure, generally quiet places--there's an air of professionalism in Rayburn or in Dirksen--but I would never describe them as "reverent."

There is, though, one place that is different. In the Supreme Court, men lower their voices instinctively. The halls of marble are generally quiet and solemn. It is a very good thing. The reverence and the silence in the courtroom are not something demanded, they are our acknowledgment of the law and this building as something greater than ourselves. It is not perfect, but is a place in which the words majesty, humility, honor, hierarchy, ceremony, guilt, innocence and authority all still hold some meaning. Such things are great and good. Sadly, reverence has vanished from so many of our churches (yes, I think from Protestant churches especially--tradition has its place). It has vanished from so much of our government. It is good for us to encounter those things greater than ourselves which demand our rightwise humility. The Court, though, does attempt to force my piety; I find that there I humble myself willingly.


I love such places.

"The Case for Working With Your Hands"

An excellent article by Matthew Crawford at the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24labor-t.html