Timothy Jacobson

My mother was notorious for it: checking out of a hotel with an item or two more than she checked in with. Years later, the contents of our drawers, countertops, and clothes closets bear witness to her souvenir-collecting. We have wooden coat hangers labeled “Property of the Pullman Company,” a . . . . Continue Reading »

Kindness is a grace that acts in and on nature and is a tool for the good. I read nothing of this in the kindness literature. Continue Reading »

Neither Lewis nor our Lord, along their respective damp and dusty ways, hiked. They walked. Continue Reading »

Going to a concert, like going to church or a nice restaurant or traveling on a plane or an overnight train, once meant dressing up and looking your best. We had been taught that dressing up showed respect—and classical music evoked special respect. This had little to do with how much one . . . . Continue Reading »

The moral standards that enable a society to hold itself together—generosity, loyalty, justice, the dignity of the individual, the right to freedom—are themselves rooted in the sacred in every society. Continue Reading »

Though I was on the verge of growing up, the Civil War Centennial revealed to me the reality of the past; it enchanted me, and wove a spell.
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“It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.” Continue Reading »