Upright can be unpopular
Being upright in conduct does not guarantee us earthly rewards. It won’t necessarily make us rich, or successful, or popular. In fact, the Bible tells us that oftentimes, the upright man is quite unpopular. Proverbs 29:27 says that “[a]n unjust man is an abomination to the just: and he that is upright in the way is […]
An empty sack?
Benjamin Franklin was, among other things, the publisher of Poor Richard’s Almanac in colonial America. The Almanack contained the annual calendar, weather, poetry, astronomical information, along with math exercises and various sayings and proverbs. Franklin himself said that a chief aim of the Almanack was to inculcate. Industry and Frugality, as the Means of procuring Wealth and […]
The Kairos of Classical Education
Thank you for being here this evening. And welcome everyone, especially to all of our new families – we are thrilled to have you as part of the CCA community. It is hard to believe that it is already time to begin again. Last year—our founding year—went by in a blink. At least it did […]
Routine & Order: The Conduit to Learning & Joy.
To some, the thought of students in desks facing the front of the room seems like the beginning of the quintessential scene in a time-period film straight from the depths of a boarding school in centuries past- a dower faced old person (man or woman -you pick the trope) sedately manages their class with a […]
Upright in conduct…when no one is looking
In 2006, Joya Williams was the executive assistant to Coca Cola’s global head of marketing. Because of her position, she had access to lots of secret information about Coke—new flavors they were coming out with, new packaging ideas, documents with Coca Cola recipe information in them, and so on. But Joya was unhappy with how […]
The yashar and tam of being upright
This week we are considering the Honor Code’s instruction to be “upright in conduct.” The idea of uprightness is frequently expressed in the Bible using two different Hebrew words: “Yashar,” which means straight, and “tam,” which means perfect or complete. In a sense, being upright in conduct is a matter of being on the straight […]
The clear conscience of an upright life
Have you ever gotten away with something bad and yet had a sense of dread or guilt that lingered? And don’t you find that the guilty conscience is often far greater a burden than any benefit we hoped to gain from our misdeeds? In our Honor Code, upright conduct follows honesty. And one of the […]
Genuine faith bears honest fruit
It is often hardest to be honest when it comes to our own weaknesses and failures—like confessing when we’ve done something bad, or to be honest that something is too difficult, and we need help. The Jewish folktale of The Honest Disciple is helpful: “Once a rabbi decided to test the honesty of his disciples, […]
Honesty means taking care to know the truth
Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote that “[a]ccuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy, of dishonesty.” What did he mean? Well, when we think of being accurate, we may think of math class, and getting an accurate answer. Or we might think of weather forecasts, and whether the meteorologist predicted rain or sunshine accurately. But there’s a […]
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant
Ever notice when you ask your parents or your teachers certain questions—usually big or important or difficult ones—they’re a little careful about how they give you the answer? Or ever wonder why God gives us the ability to know about Him and the world, but still leaves an awful lot of mystery in it. Why […]
