An Epic For Our Time

A collection of short items, for your consideration. Culture, media, faith …

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,

Read More »

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

Read More »

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

Read More »

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

Read More »

Random

The Fat Guy And Food

The Fat Guy does not particularly like food. There are gourmands, who also are likely to be massively obese — think Mario Batali, who can be easily envisioned in one of those old “Faces of Death” videos, hammering the monkey trapped in the middle of the dining table and scooping brains out of the not-yet-dead

Read More »

Closer

Norm’s is the kind of restaurant where across the street there is a long car wash, a 12-unit apartment building, a donut shop open most of the hours Norm’s is open, a strip mall with a “Luxury Day Spa” between the cigarette store and the cut-rate auto insurance broker: “Free SR-22 Filings!” the sign says. It’s

Read More »

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,

Read More »

Columbo’s Appeal

In researching links for this site, I came across an obituary for Peter Falk, who died June 23, 2011. Learning that it had been the night of June 23 (a Thursday that year) and not the next day (my wedding anniversary) was a jolt. I really, really, really, really like Columbo. But the bigger problem

Read More »

Related

Burning and Bleeding

These 21 essays, some quite short, cover everything from truth and love, to our humility and happiness, to celebrating meals and cursing God, to baseball and Johnny Cash. Thanks for reading.

Read More »

Tebow

Can he play? Should he pray? What’s next for Tim Tebow? … This book asks those questions — and answers them. Thanks for reading.

Read More »

Your Mom’s a Hypocrite

What’s so wrong with hypocrisy? Other than it being dishonest and demeaning to all that we are as humans … is it really that bad? Actually it can even be good. So, take a look at this book by a hypocrite for hypocrites. Promise you won’t regret it.

Read More »

Love Every Day

Tim Keller has said that our sinfulness is far worse than we ever could imagine, and that God’s love is far more than we ever dared hope. And Christians for millennia have affirmed no better way to learn these truths – and many others besides – than to love God with all our heart and

Read More »