G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “Now for St. Francis nothing was ever in the background. We might say that his mind had no background… He saw everything as dramatic, distinct from its setting, not all of a piece like a picture but in action like a play.”

How capable are we of "deep work"? The contemporary author, Cal Newport, who has a book by that name, defines "deep work" as "distraction-free concentration that pushes your cognitive capabilities to their limit, creating new value and improving your abilities."

Continuing the theme of silence from post last week, I encourage you to watch another lecture (its 18 minutes long) highlighting the need to cultivate silence and solitude if we are going to be able to love others and be ourselves.

The holy season of Lent is upon us. The practice of silence is an essential way to enter into the penitential spirit of this season and experience its fruit—conversion.

While sitting in my office a day or two before Christmas break, I overheard an excerpt of a remarkable elocution on the rashness of human judgment delivered by one of our faculty to the Junior/Senior literature class.

"But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire..." (Mal 3:2, from Friday of the Fourth Week of Advent). I've been listening to Handel's Messiah during the past couple of weeks and one of the songs in the first part takes up this frightening verse.