Pondering the Permanent Things
Pondering the Permanent Things

Author: Thomas Howard

Publisher: Ignatius Press

Published: 2023-07-25

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 164229277X

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God fashioned the universe as a seamless fabric, a marvelous, unified, orderly creation. But man's sin tore it asunder, disrupting its great cosmic harmonies. Only Christ could make the symphony ring out again. And through a dazzling array of literature, music, sculpture, art, theater, and dance, men and women of faith, too, can work with Christ to mend the tear in the universe. According to the late Professor Thomas Howard, the poet and the prophet both speak a loud voice against the tide of secularism and eventual destruction. Yet how does this work? How does myth convey truth? How does architecture reflect eternal verities? How does the written word humanize and sanctify us? What treasure and stability does an ancient faith hold for the unsettled modern mind? Howard spent his life answering these questions. Christians of all walks of life will appreciate his witty, devout, and cutting observations on faith, art, and the incarnation of Christ. In this volume, readers will also encounter beloved teachers, writers, and friends who influenced Howard's theological imagination, including C. S. Lewis and T. S. Eliot.

Christ the Tiger
Christ the Tiger

Author: Thomas Howard

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2004-09-14

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 1725212013

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This book is a reprint with revisions of one of Thomas Howard's earliest and most popular books. It is somewhat autobiographical, revealing the thoughts of a young man who has been seized by the love of Christ and, at first, sees dogmas and institutions as obscuring the terrible truth of God's love in Christ. But even at that earlier period, Howard showed his awareness that without those institutions there would be no way of encountering Christ the tiger. Howard is able to bring out the true vitality of what this faith is and should be, the radical nature of the Christian faith. This book powerfully presents who Christ is and what faith in him means. from 'Christ the Tiger': In the figure of Jesus we saw Immanuel, that is, God, that is, Love. It was a figure who, appearing so inauspiciously among us, broke up our secularist and our religious categories and beckoned us and judged us and damned us and saved us and exhibited to us a kind of life that participates in the indestructible. And it was a figure who announced the validity of our eternal effort to discover significance and beauty beyond inanition and horror by announcing to us the unthinkable: redemption.

Things Worth Dying For
Things Worth Dying For

Author: Charles J. Chaput

Publisher: Henry Holt and Company

Published: 2021-03-16

Total Pages: 203

ISBN-13: 125023977X

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With a balance of wisdom, candor, and scholarly rigor the beloved archbishop emeritus of Philadelphia takes on life’s central questions: why are we here, and how can we live and die meaningfully? In Things Worth Dying For, Chaput delves richly into our yearning for God, love, honor, beauty, truth, and immortality. He reflects on our modern appetite for consumption and individualism and offers a penetrating analysis of how we got here, and how we can look to our roots and our faith to find purpose each day amid the noise of competing desires. Chaput examines the chronic questions of the human heart; the idols and false flags we create; and the nature of a life of authentic faith. He points to our longing to live and die with meaning as the key to our search for God, our loyalty to nation and kin, our conduct in war, and our service to others. Ultimately, with compelling grace, he shows us that the things worth dying for reveal most powerfully the things worth living for.

Dove Descending
Dove Descending

Author: Thomas Howard

Publisher: Sapienta Classics

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 156

ISBN-13:

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T.S. Eliot is widely considered the most important and most influential poet of the 20th century. Many consider Four Quartets to be the finest of his poems and his greatest achievement. In this masterful journey into the beauties and depths of Eliot's masterpiece, the bestselling author, professor and critic Thomas Howard unravels the complexities of the sublime poem with such adept adroitness that even its most difficult passages spring to life. During his long years as a professor teaching English and Literature, Howard taught this poem often, and developed what he calls "a reading" approach to the concepts of this masterpiee to render its meaning more lucid for the reader. Therefore, this is not a "scholarly" work, but rather the brilliant insights of a master teacher and writer whose understanding of this profound poem and his deep love for the writing of Eliot are shared here for the great benefit of the reader.

The Sense of an Ending
The Sense of an Ending

Author: Julian Barnes

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2011-10-05

Total Pages: 158

ISBN-13: 0307957330

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BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A novel that follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he never much thought about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single setting, The Sense of an Ending has the psychological and emotional depth and sophistication of Henry James at his best, and is a stunning achievement in Julian Barnes's oeuvre. Tony Webster thought he left his past behind as he built a life for himself, and his career has provided him with a secure retirement and an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and daughter, who now has a family of her own. But when he is presented with a mysterious legacy, he is forced to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.

The Order of Things
The Order of Things

Author: James V. Schall

Publisher: Ignatius Press

Published: 2009-09-03

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 1681495295

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Father James Schall, the well- known author and professor of philosophy at Georgetown University, inquires about the various orders found in the cosmos, the human mind, the human body, the city, and he seeks to reflect upon the unity of these orders.In a world in which the presence of reason and order are denied presumably in the name of science in favor of chance explanations of why things are as they are, it is surprising to find that, in the various realms open to the human intellect, we find a persistent order revealed. At first sight, it may seem that this reality can be explained by chance occurrence, but after a point, there is a growing sense that behind things there is, in fact, an order. This order can be traced in the many areas that are open to the human mind. As Aquinas has noted, the order within the cosmos points to an order outside of it, since the cosmos cannot be the cause of its own internal order. Philosophers have long inquired about the curious fact that the order of things implies not a mere relationship of one thing to another, but a hint that the universe is created with a certain superabundance. Why is the universe, and the things within it, not only ordered but, ordered with a sense of beauty? Not only is there an order in things, but also the human mind seems attuned to this order as something it delights in discovering. This relationship implies that there is some correspondence between mind and reality. What is the relationship between the mind and reality? The Order of Things explores this question. Relying on common sense and the experience available to everyone, Schall concludes that it requires more credulity to disbelieve in order than to experience it. Finally, Schall explores the fundamental cause of order, what it is like? Having looked at the order of the created universe, it is not surprising that the revelation of the Godhead is itself ordered in terms of an inner relationship of Persons.

Digital Zettelkasten
Digital Zettelkasten

Author: David Kadavy

Publisher: Kadavy, Inc.

Published: 2021-05-25

Total Pages: 77

ISBN-13:

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Are you an academic, author, or blogger or anyone else who wants to make writing a breeze? The Zettelkasten method is the perfect way to harness the power of technology to remember what you read and boost creativity. Invented in the 16th century, and practiced to its fullest extent by a German sociologist who wrote more than seventy books and hundreds of articles, the Zettelkasten method is exploding in popularity. Writers of all types are discovering that digital tools make the method more powerful than ever, turning your digital life into an “external brain,” or “bicycle for the mind.” In Digital Zettelkasten: Principles, Methods, & Examples, blogger and nonfiction author David Kadavy shares a first-principles approach on how to adapt the Zettelkasten method to simple digital tools of your choice. How to structure your Zettelkasten? Kadavy borrows an element of the Getting Things Done framework to make sure nothing you want to read falls through the cracks. Naming convention pros/cons. Should you adopt the classic “Folgezettel” technique, or do digital tools make it irrelevant for your workflow? Reading workflow. The exact steps to follow to turn what you read into detailed notes you can mix and match to produce writing. Staying comfortable. Build a workflow to maintain your Zettelkasten without being chained to your computer. Examples, examples, examples. See real examples of notes that illustrate concepts, so you can build a Zettelkasten that fits your workflow and tools. Digital Zettelkasten: Principles, Methods, & Examples is short, to the point, with no fluff, so it won’t keep you from what you want – to build your Zettelkasten!

Why I Became an Atheist
Why I Became an Atheist

Author: John W. Loftus

Publisher: Prometheus Books

Published: 2012-10-10

Total Pages: 1047

ISBN-13: 1616145781

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For about two decades John W. Loftus was a devout evangelical Christian, an ordained minister of the Church of Christ, and an ardent apologist for Christianity. With three degrees--in philosophy, theology, and philosophy of religion--he was adept at using rational argumentation to defend the faith. But over the years, doubts about the credibility of key Christian tenets began to creep into his thinking. By the late 1990s he experienced a full-blown crisis of faith. In this honest appraisal of his journey from believer to atheist, the author carefully explains the experiences and the reasoning process that led him to reject religious belief. The original edition of this book was published in 2006 and reissued in 2008. Since that time, Loftus has received a good deal of critical feedback from Christians and skeptics alike. In this revised and expanded edition, the author addresses criticisms of the original, adds new argumentation and references, and refines his presentation. For every issue he succinctly summarizes the various points of view and provides references for further reading. In conclusion, he describes the implications of life without belief in God, some liberating, some sobering. This frank critique of Christian belief from a former insider will interest freethinkers as well as anyone with doubts about the claims of religion.

Evangelical Is Not Enough
Evangelical Is Not Enough

Author: Thomas Howard

Publisher: Ignatius Press

Published: 2011-03-18

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 1681491567

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In this deeply moving narrative, Thomas Howard describes his pilgrimage from Evangelicalism (which he loves and reveres as the religion of his youth) to liturgical Christianity. He soon afterward became a Roman Catholic. He describes Evangelicalism with great sympathy and then examines more formal, liturgical worship with the freshness of someone discovering for the first time what his soul had always hungered for. This is a book of apologetics without polemics. Non-Catholics will gain an appreciation of the formal and liturgical side of Catholicism. Catholics will see with fresh eyes the beauty of their tradition. Worship, prayer, the Blessed Virgin, the Mass, and the liturgical year are taken one after the other, and what may have seemed routine and repetitive suddenly comes to life under the enchanting wand of Howard's beautiful prose. Howard unfolds for us just what occurs in the vision and imagination of a Christian who, nurtured in the earnestness of Protestant Evangelicalism, finds himself yearning for "whatever-it-is" that has been there in the Church for 2000 years. It traces Howard's soul-searching and shows why he believes the practices of the liturgical Church are an invaluable aid for any Christian's spiritual life. Reminiscent of the style and scope of Newman, Lewis and Knox, this book is destined to be a classic. "The question, What is the Church? becomes, finally, intractable; and one finds oneself unable to offer any very telling reasons why the phrase 'one, holy, catholic, and apostolic', is to be understood in any other than the way in which it was understood for 1500 years." -- Thomas Howard