Not all rigor is mortis.

Not all rigor is mortis. Though, to be honest, most of our best teachers are dead.

Augustine, Calvin, Ambrose, T.S. Eliot, Flannery O'Connor, Chesterton. All dead.

The Liberal Arts are a bloody business. And people aren't the only casualties. Languages have died. Cities- gone. Libraries- burned by insecure bearded invaders. Don't even ask about the arts. Or Byzantium.

But the history of the Western world isn't over. We're standing in it. Standing on it. The same ancient wars are being waged and the same enemies are entrenched outside the walls of the City of God. They're even wearing the same face paint. This is no time to mourn or go wobbly.

We're not dad yet. We're in the thick of it. Rigor vitae. Break out the bread. Pour the wine. And when we do join the saints beyond the fray, we'll have left others behind, trained, eager, laughing, ready for their turn.

-New Saint Andrews College (And I'd bet my life that it was N. D. Wilson that wrote it for them.)