What song would you sing?
If You Were Stranded On A Desert Island
Recent
Coyotes and Christians
I am not saying Christians are like coyotes. [For that, some could cut caustically to coyotes are like Christians — tricksters, roaming in the dark, feeding on the dead … ] Simply noticed — somewhat in passing, as it’s said, having attained, apparently … achieved? … some kind of state where nearly anything I hear,
And Did Dostoevsky Say ‘Beauty Will Save’
Short answer: he did not. Neither did Prince Myshkin, that we know of. Likely both believed it. Beauty — in the person of Christ — will do so. And clearly D wrote of M in The Idiot to explore art and beauty and ugliness and salvation. But did he say it, and did he believe that
What I Recalled Watching Netflix
[Television is educational.] One Saying the same stuff over and over looks like you have different things to say. Two If you’re ever in a below-average film or streaming series, and you beat the tar out of a guy, in a house, and you gaze down in both some shock as also a certain
Seeking the King
A line everywhere misattributed to Chesterton reads thus: The young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God. This line is not from the great [several senses of the word] man who recently celebrated his 150th birthday, but the mid-century most unmodern novelist Bruce Marshall. The words — which do
Random
The End In Mind
Sometimes we imagine ourselves the star of our own personal blockbuster biopic, currently in production (it’s sometimes in development hell, but generally moving forward) and it’s all vital and crucial, Academy Award-material, two thumbs way up. God is teaching us all this stuff, we think, even if don’t presently know what it is. And if
Old Flannery Coat
The porch steps were slick with rain this morning, and I realized I knew people whose first reaction to someone slipping on them would not be sadness — let alone to help — but rather to laugh. These are the sociopaths-in-training. These are the men and women I pray get their asses kicked like Al
More Research Necessary
A report from the lab — She’ll talk sometimes, make an endless series of noises with inflections and rhythm and pauses. Or she’ll just scream for as long as she can. — this from my son, the father of the girl in question, and questioning. Hmm, I said, I still do that. But for she,
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Itch-A-Sketch
Church folk and artists haven’t always been friends. Ha. Get it? Because it seems they’ve almost never been friends, though that’s not true, and shouldn’t be, but just how much it shouldn’t be isn’t clear. It’s as someone said about once about a poet: Dylan Thomas wrote six great poems, but no one knows which
Not a Eulogy
(A Eucatastrophe) * Love the words, my friends. Pay attention to the words, I say. Christians don’t die One reason we know this is Jesus said it. In John’s account he told Michael: “You shall never taste or see death” (Indeed, as the Psalmist says, “taste and see that the Lord is good.”) Another reason
For M
The great story is the search by the lover for the beloved. I love M. I am in love with M. [angry as well; in love and in pain, simul.] To love as Christ loves. (ask, seek, knock). God pursues. Christ stands. Spirit groans. I am he. I seek her even if she will not
Pumpkin Eater
Alex Rodriguez cheated. Took the easy way. Lied. And if he really does have faith, as he said after the Red Sox game Sunday, he knows he’s right out of Pinocchio. His lawyer, however, appears to have no idea what a gigantic donkey he himself is. To recap — Ryan Dempster missed Rodriguez with his