Sterling Terrell

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5 Things I Am Thankful For In 2021

5 Things I Am Thankful For In 2021

Without preamble, here are 5 things I am thankful for in 2021.

Here is 2020.

#1
I am so thankful for my kids. They make me a little crazy sometimes. (Bedtime tonight for example.) But they also brighten my days in ways that I never knew could be done. Scooters, bikes, walks, barbies, dress-up, princesses, quarantine, and coaching basketball: This dad is here for it.

#2
I am thankful for flying. See, I have gotten to travel a bit this last year for work. And, honestly, I love the travel days. Airport parking, boarding passes, lunch with dessert in terminal B, reading in lounges, ginger ale, an afternoon above the clouds. It totally sucks being gone from the family… But I enjoy flying.

#3
I am thankful for this blog. It sounds stupid to say. But every day that I continue writing and posting is another day that I didn’t give up. And I am proud of it the longer it goes. More coffee. More reading. More writing.

#4
I am thankful for a new job. Honestly, in the turmoil of my last job, I could not see the next steps my life would take. And then this dream fell out of the sky and landed in my lap. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

#5
I am thankful for Christmas lights. On our late-night walks, we have already enjoyed looking at the lights people have put up this year. We weave around through surrounding neighborhoods on the moonlit streets and marvel at the glowing houses we pass. It’s especially sweet to see the mystery of it all dance in the eyes of my (almost) two-year-old. We even put Christmas lights on our house for the first time this year.

The Importance Of Ordo Amoris

The Importance Of Ordo Amoris

Ordo Amoris means “the order of affections.”

In short: It’s another way of saying “priorities.”

The thing is that the priorities that one has in this life have to be mostly taught.

Children have to be shown that kindness should take a front seat to malice, charity should be prized above greed, and love should be preferred to hate.

One does not start out with an instinct for selflessness and virtue.

But misplaced priorities can easily manifest later in adults too.

A preference for spending and accumulation (instant gratification) over savings and wealth can lead to financial strain and bankruptcy – and a priority of lust, over parental/spousal responsibility can lead to broken families.

Again, this all feels hard to put a finger on without ethics as the unmovable root.

This all tips a hat back toward the necessity of classical education:

So we have returned once more to Lewis and Maritain and Weil and before all of them Augustine: the necessity of seeking the ordo amoris, of training the emotional responses before training the rational ones. But for Eliot this is vital not just for the young, but for all ages; and the instrument distinctively suited to such training is poetry.

-Alan Jacobs, The Year Of Our Lord 1943 (Amazon)

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