Templar Edification

The emergence of biologically modern humans, as best we can determine from DNA studies and the fossil record, occurred some 300,000 years ago. Cultural artifacts, tools and art, developed perhaps 60,000 years ago. Yet for the majority of our time on this planet, Homo sapiens differed little from other complex primates, small in numbers, modestly shaping our local environment. All that changed roughly 30,000 years ago, when our species formed an alliance, a symbiosis, with another well-adapted predator, the grey wolf. Thus was birthed the dog, and the miracle of domestication. Before we herded sheep, before we rode horses, before the agricultural revolution, human beings loved and raised and lived with dogs. I used to like to think that domestication of the dog was the one unalloyed good that humanity had managed to accomplish. Yet more recent studies indicate that we didn’t tame them; they chose to interact with us. Certain wolves soon discovered that following bands of hunter-gatherer...

I find it difficult to imagine anything quite so countercultural as the sabbath. In the Hebrew Scriptures, God commands the people of Israel to hallow the seventh day of the week, and neither to do nor to allow any labor during that period from sundown to sundown. Sabbath observance is to be the mark of His people, even more so than circumcision. By setting this time apart, they set themselves apart. Sabbath observance, mind you, deals not with laziness or with simple entertainments. The sabbath is a time for learning and for prayer. It’s when we remind ourselves that we are not merely beasts of burden, but human beings, possessing an innate dignity far more precious than whatever we can accomplish or produce. Sabbath is a time to be, rather than to do. Leisure, in our society, has become something of a lost art. We live not as responsible citizens of a republic, but as consumers; with a worth based not on the Image of God but on our purchases, preferences, and politics. How much money...

When I warn my children of consequences for their bad behavior, I have to be both discerning and sparing; for whatever I threaten, I must then be willing to follow through. One arrow in my quiver that worked particularly well when they were younger was my promise to play one of my black-and-white subtitled samurai films, which I adore and which bore my children to tears. They took this threat seriously, because they knew that I would be happy to carry it out. American and Japanese pop culture have been entwined in a love affair ever since the end of World War II. Few directors on either side of the Pacific have been so influential as Akira Kurosawa. His movies have been remade, often shot for shot, into such familiar titles as The Magnificent Seven, A Fistful of Dollars, A Bug’s Life, and, yes, even Star Wars. For his part, Kurosawa loved Shakespeare, filming his own medieval Japanese interpretations of Macbeth and King Lear. Most fascinating to me was how he adapted the religious aspe...

Last night our daughters informed me that they had finally grown too old for me to read to them at bedtime. Granted, the younger was in a grumpy mood, having generally gotten too little sleep over the holiday break. But as they are in fifth and seventh grade respectively, I can’t say that they’re entirely off-base. I knew this day would come. Our son was in seventh grade when he likewise asked me to stop reading to him, and I still view that as something of a bittersweet milestone. Together we had read about medieval Japan and World War I and chocolate factories and New England whaling and the Native American invention of lacrosse. I miss those bedside adventures. For as long as I can remember, books have been holy to me. Credit this to my parents, both lifelong educators, and especially to my mother, who read to me from day one—and who taught me to read on my own when, at three years of age, I grew frustrated with my inability to do so. Frugal as they were when I was growing up, my pa...

Our middle child has outgrown most of her old stuffed animals, yet two retain their prominence of place: her plush Krampus, and her plush Jersey Devil. Yes, the pastor’s daughter delights in adorable little demons, both of which I bought for her. In fairness, they’re really more fairy tale monsters than anything else: folkloric entities limited to St. Nicholas’ Day and the greater Philadelphia area, respectively. And in these particular renditions, they’re honestly quite cute. Creatures such as Krampus are often claimed to be heathen holdovers from pre-Christian times, but most of that is bunk. Pagans don’t have devils. They didn’t need them. Their gods were bad enough. Devils, by and large, are of Christian conception, and for good reason. The Hebrew Scriptures, which make up the bulk of the Christian Old Testament, are best taken not as a single work but as a library. They contain histories, mythologies, poetry, letters, liturgies, all witnessing to the relationship between God and H...

By: Reverend Grand Chaplain Ryan Stout One of the perks of being a Christian of a catholic disposition—by which I mean coming from a religious tradition that emphasizes liturgy, history, the sacraments and saints—is that I, as a grown man, get to continue proudly to believe in Santa Claus. Not only that, but the stories about Santa Claus only improve as one delves deeper into his legend. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. I have a vial of the oil from his bones. Perhaps I should back up a tick. The story of St Nicholas begins, as do so many good things, with a mother’s prayer. Nonna and Theophannes were a Greek Christian couple living in third-century Lycia, reckoned today as part of Turkey. They had everything they could want: wealth, respect, an honorable bloodline; everything except a child. Nonna’s prayers were answered late in life, and she bore a son, Nicholas, named for his uncle in the monastery. Alas, both parents would soon be lost to a plague, and the young Nicholas woul...