Nice Guys Finish Last
The other day a lady described a man she had met and I was about to see again. Her description was summed up at the end by, “he is a nice guy.” I shuddered a bit and reconsidered my options. Was this man really someone I wanted to meet? Then that got me thinking, why is it almost an insult to call a man a “nice guy”? There is nothing inhere...
Cactus to Clouds, Pushing it and Brotherhood
By: Leo Gallegos “Every day that passes, I fall more desperately in love with the mountains… I am ever more determined to climb the mountains, to scale the mighty peaks, to feel that pure joy which can only be felt in the mountains.” Bl. Pier Gorgio Frassati. As we embrace the season of Lent, I am reminded of one of my favorite hiking trips...
A Woman’s Note to TCM Readers: We’re Ready for Your Strength
One of the saddest things about the controversies about masculinity – toxic this and that – is that it has men sitting behind screens pecking out and tweeting responses to internet mobs that wont hear them. While this is happening everyday there are practical ways to simply fill the void of masculinity instead of letting it be filled with the ...
Wood vs the World: In Awe of the Created
My sons have an excellent book I recommend to other families called Reverence for Wood by Eric Sloane, which, in classic wording, an image proposes the wonder of wood to the young imagination. And wood does indeed deserve such instilling at young ages. Wood beckons reverence because of its nobility in itself, but also in how it ennobles and enabl...
Male Strength Has Purpose and Should Not Be Suppressed
On his radio talk show Metaxas Talk, the evangelical Christian, author and public intellectual Eric Metaxas has made the case that feminism arose from a genuine problem on the part of men, namely the misuse of their male strength. Himself a critic of feminism, however, Metaxas maintains that while the feminist’s diagnosis of the problem was cor...
Blessed Are They Who Mourn: How I’m Responding to Grandpa’s Death
*Since this article was written, Sean’s grandfather has passed. Please pause and pray for his soul. Today I had what may very well have been my last conversation with my beloved “Grampa.” He is 90 years old, in the advanced stages of cancer, and has declined extremely rapidly in the course of just a few weeks. The doctors say it’s ...
What to Do If Your Son Embarrasses You
In an interesting and passing comment in Rerum Novarum, Pope St. Leo XIII says that children “continue [a father’s] personality.” He is not speaking about his specific and unique personality, like being melancholic or something, but in that a child does carry forward the person of his father in his ways of life and character. Children lea...