I’m glad that my disability article has been so well - received , but reader after reader has pointed to one unanswered question — actually, two unanswered questions that mean the same thing. (Don’t worry — these questions make sense even if you haven’t read the . . . . Continue Reading »
My friend Matt Crawford has written a book ! It is a very good book! I will have more to say about it later! But for now, go read this warm review of Shop Class as Soulcraft , by Slate ‘s Michael Agger! . . . . Continue Reading »
One line of commentary on my last post is deeply disconcerting. Three of our fellow bloggers on the postmodern conservative website have launched a scandalous attack on Maxwell House, mocking the American company which, until Folgers came on to the scene, was the number one producer of coffee in . . . . Continue Reading »
One thing that’s always unfashionable is pessimism about the Power of Love. I touched a bit on love yesterday, and I see today that Daniel did the same a few days before that — in the context of another go against our love-projecting cosmopolitans. Where the cosmops would seek, . . . . Continue Reading »
It’s always nice to see smart young academics move up in the world, and one of them, my friend John Schwenkler, has had his fine blog Upturned Earth taken aboard at AmCon . A win/win, I’d say. . . . . Continue Reading »
“There is a complexity to human affairs,” David Brooks has announced, “before which science and analysis simply stands mute.” This is correct, but in comes in the context of a column that seems to cut in a strange way against it. It is as if we all contain a multitude of . . . . Continue Reading »
My mind wandered, the eyes teared up, and one escaped, fortunately unnoticed, as I sat in the pew. I was thinking of my friend, the Rev. Dr. Bill McSwegin, who died and was buried last week, as the congregation sang a hymn that contained the lyrics, “he spoke the ancient . . . . Continue Reading »
In the Emmy-winning 1997 version of Rebecca , there’s a scene in which the new, young Mrs. de Winter is harassed by one of the film’s less savory characters for claiming to enjoy being alone at the vast Manderlay estate while her husband is away on business. From our present-day . . . . Continue Reading »
Once, our own Jim Ceaser summoned forth an evocative dialogue between Con and Pomocon . The drama hinged on how compatible were the two concerning those Three A’s — affectation, authenticity, and authority. Though their subtle advances and defenses could never be mistaken for the likes . . . . Continue Reading »
Exploration into God is exploration into darkness, into the heart of darkness. Yes, to be sure, God is light. He is the light by which all light is light. In the words of the Psalm, “In your light we see light.” Yet great mystics of the Christian tradition speak of the darkness in which the light is known, a darkness inextricably connected to the cross. At the heart of darkness the hope of the world is dying on a cross, and the longest stride of soul is to see in this a strange glory. In John’s Gospel, the cross is the bridge from the first Passover on the way out of Egypt to the new Passover into glory. In his first chapter he writes, “We have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.” The cross is not the eclipse of that glory but its shining forth, its epiphany. In John’s account, the death of Jesus is placed on the afternoon of the fourteenth day of the month of Nisan, precisely the time when the Passover lambs were offered up in the temple in Jerusalem. Lest anyone miss the point, John draws the parallel unmistakably. The legs of Jesus are not broken, the soldier pierces his side and John writes, “For these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled, ‘Not a bone of him shall be broken.’ And again another scripture says, ‘They shall look on him whom they have pierced.’” In the book of Exodus, God commands that no bone of the paschal lamb is to be broken. Then there is this magnificent passage from the prophet Zechariah: “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of compassion and supplication, so that, when they look on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.” Continue Reading »
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