Friday, November 7, 2008

Making Connections

Update: Emma read this post and thought that it needed modification. I have made the changes that she requested.

Emma and I are reading The Privilege of Being a Woman by Alice von Hildebrand. I alternate her assignments in it with assignments in Catholic Morality by Fr. John Laux. For some reason I thought that I would lead the discussions on Privilege. What was I thinking?

Emma had just started reading Part III, when she said, "Mom, listen." She read,

"The world in which we now live is a world whose outlook is so distorted that we absolutize what is relative (money-making, power, success) and relativize what is absolute (truth, moral values, and God). Power, riches, fame, success, and dominance are idolized; humility, chastity, modesty, self-sacrifice, and service are looked down upon as signs of weakness."

She paused and looked up at me.

"Wolf Larson," she said.

"Who?" I asked.

"Wolf Larson. You know, the captain in The Sea Wolf." She explained how the passage quoted above, when taken to the extreme, reflects Larson's philosphy of life, a philosphy in which there is no God and people have no souls.

This was the beginning of a 20-minute discussion. The discussion was not led by me. I read The Sea Wolf. . .in 1972. Emma didn't come right out and say it, but I think I have homework.

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