Gentle Joy and Gentle Sorrow: Titian's The Annunciation and Ecce Homo

The celebration of the Annunciation of our Lord approaches quickly on March 25th and Good Friday follows soon after. Not long after that, my own child will be born. So Titian’s beautiful and heart-rending portrayals of the Annunciation and Christ’s suffering in his two works from 1557 and 1547 respectively immediately caught my attention during a recent perusal of artwork for the website…

Education: What’s Love Got to Do with It?

So, ultimately, what in the world does love have to do with education? A lot, actually. It has so much to do with education, in fact, that I think it’s the key link, the place we should be examining most closely. Simply put, we postmodern Americans have believed a great lie. We have believed that education would make our pocketbooks thicker but should do nothing to enrich our hearts.

Much Ado About Nothing: A Podcast Recommendation

The Play’s the Thing is a podcast produced by the Circe Institute’s podcast network Close Reads. The rotating hosts dive into a Shakespeare play for a number of episodes. I recommend the five episodes they spend on Much Ado About Nothing. These episodes include all of the best characteristics of a favorite college course or lecture series, while also managing to entertain. And they are completely free.

The Two Camps of Artists: Some Thoughts on Sketching

J.D. Harding made a strong argument for general artistic education. A mind can only be fully developed once it has studied some form of art, even simple sketching. He goes on to argue that one cannot be fully alive to the influence of nature’s beauty without the medium of art, and claims that those who have not studied art see the beauty of creation only “through a glass darkly.”

Classical Education, Not ConversationsKatie SaundersMay 19, 2020sketching 0 Comments

What Do We Fear?

Perhaps in our age we have made science our god and when, like Baal failing to rain fire from the heavens, our god lets us down, what will we do? Cut ourselves until the blood flows? Fear sickness or any other threat to our body?

Daily FaithKatie SaundersMay 6, 2020Covid-19, Coronavirus, Trust, Faith, Science 0 Comments

A Conversation with Dr. Stephen Saunders about Faith and Psychology

“And I have an admiration for the people that I work with, because I know it was hard for them to get therapy, to overcome their sense of embarrassment, as if there’s something wrong with having a mental illness. And yet they come in and they gift me with their presence and they gift me with their stories and they gift me with the chance to try to help them.”

ConversationsKatie SaundersMay 2, 2020Martin Luther, Melancholia, Mental Health 0 Comments

In Defense of the Personal Library

The art, the pleasure, of building your own library attaches specific books to your soul. You make them your own, not only by reading what is written in them, but by touching them often, being perennially reminded of their lessons, marking them with your own thoughts, and committing them to your entire being.

The Great Battle: A Brief Reflection

And so, through all this, entrenched in both spiritual and physical disease, we come to another Good Friday, the Day of days, the culmination of the Great Battle.

Baking Bread: The Joy of Developing a Craft

Baking bread renews and generates humility in my prideful heart. It is difficult to make good bread by hand and it requires great attention to someone else’s word and to the dough. Mastery takes patience, care, and a good bit of failure.

Woman's CraftKatie SaundersMarch 31, 2020Bread, Sourdough, Cultural renewal 2 Comments