This will be a shorter digest than previous ones as I’m spending time with family and traveling for the Christmas season. I’ll hit the ground running in January.
On Commonplacing
Surely happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven; and every countenance, bright with smiles, and glowing with innocent enjoyment, is a mirror transmitting to others the rays of a supreme and ever shining benevolence. He who can turn churlishly away from contemplating the felicity of his fellow beings, and sit down darkling and repining in his loneliness when all around is joyful, may have his moments of strong excitement and selfish gratification, but he wants the genial and social sympathies which constitute the charm of a merry Christmas.
Washington Irving, “Old Christmas,” in The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon.
Great Ideas: Tradition, Memory & Imagination, Virtue & Vice, Soul, Religion, Happiness, Family
I’ve read quite a bit of Christmas material this season, but I never exhaust my love of Washington Irving’s Christmas essays. This line from “Old Christmas” was one of the things that first drew me into a love for Irving. And closing out 2023, it seemed most fitting to return to the original Knickerbocker.
On Reading & Researching
As I noted above, I’ve worked through some classic Christmas readings this season, such Agatha Christie’s “The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding” and C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
On the academic side, I’m working my way back through
’s Cultural Liturgies project. I will have more to say on this in the coming months. The first book, Desiring the Kingdom, has been influential on my educational and pedagogical journey starting in 2012, so I thought a ten-year-ish retrospective was in order.There has been much ado made about the “death” of postmillennial eschatology of late. I gave Jeremy Sexton’s exegetical salvo a read and found myself wanting to know more rather than less (which seems to be the opposite of his goal). As a result, I’ve started working through Jonathan Edwards’s A History of the Work of Redemption. So far, it is Edwards at his finest.
On Writing
I’m winding down several projects right now.
And I will be winding up on several new projects in the Spring. I’ve got stuff in the works on Harry Sylvester, Ernest Hemingway, Ray Bradbury, Charles Eliot Norton, and, of course, Classical Education.
On Publishing
The Society for Classical Learning published a report for their Thriving Schools Study that has my name on it. The report is only available to members of the SCL, and my contribution was not too extensive, but it was satisfying to see my name on the first project completed as part of my time at the Classical Education Research Lab.
On Traveling & Speaking
We traveled back to Florida this week, spending time with family and our friends at Providence Church. We’ll be back in Arkansas for a few days the first week of January, but then we’ll head to Monroe, LA for the Christendom Lectures. I have wanted to go to these lectures for the last several years but could not get away because of my work schedule. I’m excited to hear Joe Rigney speak, and my kids are excited to sing and dance under the tutelage of
.On Listening
“I Heard the Bells” is one of my absolute favorite Christmas hymns. I’ve heard the objection that it is not a hymn since Longfellow doesn’t mention Christ explicitly. But I think his direct quotation from the Angelic host at the Nativity gives it more weight that many realize. This performance by Echosmith is great.
Thanks for the Christie Christmas story recommendation! A perfect vacation read for our week at the cabin.