TWE

The nineteenth century Russian story, The Candid Narrations of a Pilgrim to His Spiritual Father, tells the story of a poor man with a withered arm who reads St. Paul's instruction to pray without ceasing. Thessalonians 5:17. He wonders how a person can do this. He seeks

"A man who is angry, even if he were to raise the dead, is not acceptable to God." Agathon

"There is nothing gayer than true wisdom, nothing jollier, more playful, or--I could almost say--more madcap." Montaigne

Followers have consistently sought silence and stillness. They are the treasures sought by the monastic life, whether it be the monasticism of the mysterious, math-loving Pythagoreans of ancient Greece; the Jewish Essenes from the time of Christ; Buddhist monasticism; or Christian monasticism from its inception in the fourth century. Perhaps

“I, the Captain of a Legion of Rome, serving in the desert of Libya, have learnt and pondered this truth: 'There are in life but two things to be sought, Love and Power, and no one has both.'”

"Youth is a charming thing; it sets off a life's beginning, crowned with flowers, like the Athenian fleet on its way to conquer Sicily." Chateaubriand

The Modern Vomitorium Few practices from ancient Rome leave a bad taste in the mouth like the vomitorium. During Roman banquets, participants would stuff themselves with food until they couldn't eat any more, then go to the vomitorium where they would tickle their throats with a feather. They

Reality is simultaneously knowable and unfathomable. Josef Pieper

G.K. Chesterton once wrote that frugality is more romantic than extravagance. It is. The penny-pinched man looking for a gift for his beloved, he must think and be creative. And when he spends on his beloved, he feels it, like the old woman felt her two mites go into

"As the eyes of bats are dazzled by sunlight, so it is with human intelligence when face to face with what is by nature most obvious." Aristotle "Though the eyes of the bat do not avail to behold the sun, it is seen by the eye of