story – Catholic Heart and Mind

This better be Plato. — Plato used stories to communicate truth to his reader or listener at a deep level. (Even if his dialogues were conspicuously one-sided.)

Welcome to part 8 of our weekly series on the soul. We’ve been listening to Thomas Mirus interviewing James Matthew Wilson about his book, The Vision of the Soul: Truth, Goodness and Beauty in the Western Tradition, part 6 and part 7 of our series. This week the podcast is subtitled Reason With Stories, Philosophize With Your Life and will be the end of the Wilson interviews, but our series on the soul will continue. I’ve already got some other texts, videos, etc, lined up for us.

Now I’ve got some snacks and a fresh cup of hot tea. Yes, here in the American South one does have to specify. Joanna Bogle made fun of me for doing that when we spoke once for a few minutes in the parking lot at EWTN. She is so charming and fun. I was already a fan and after that, even more so. But I digress. (Mom, stop with the name-dropping already!) (I’m not name-dropping, Miss Lucy Dawg. Okay, I am, but—) (Mom!) (Okay, okay! Sheesh, everybody’s a critic.) Here we go. Notes and links at the end of this post.

Modernity elevated pure, abstract reasoning as the only way to know about reality. Reason having disenchanted everything else, modernity then became disenchanted with reason. The ascendancy of reason over superstitious myths was viewed by the postmodernists as just another myth to be exposed. — Catholic Culture Podcast, ep 65, Vision of the Soul

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Update, Feb 3, 2020: Decided to make this post a bit more presentable since it’s been getting views recently. It looks happier now. I’ve learned a thing or two about posting since 2012. (What’s that, Miss Lucy Dawg? Oh, really? Well, yeah, I guess I still do have to learn a thing or two. Smarty.)

I posted a brief version of my conversion story on the About Me page a while back. But during a conversation here on the blog someone (Hi, Lauretta!) asked me what drew me to Catholicism. I don’t know if she knew what she was letting herself in for, but I wrote a few paragraphs by way of reply and thought I’d share that reply in a post of its own (slightly edited because I can’t ever just copy/paste anything without editing it and because it’s a post now and not a reply). Bear in mind that even though this goes into more detail than the About Me page does, I’m still leaving out a lot. I didn’t go into all the various false paths and blind alleys and dead ends I wandered into along the way before I found Him Who is The Way, the Truth and the Life. So without further ado, here’s the story of my conversion, take two. (Hey, wake up, the post is about to begin!)

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