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Wondering Why

The leaves are falling in our backyard. The liquid ambers have gone deep red, and their leaves blow into drifts that collect against the grass. My four-year-old son looked out the window the other morning and found one suspended perfectly in mid-air. Held by a single invisible thread, thanks to a spider with outsized hunting ambitions, the leaf hung above the herb garden, outside the window of our breakfast nook… . Continue Reading »

Books for Christmas: ‘12 Edition

The most intellectually exciting book I read this past year was Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Eerdmans). Unfolding his research like a detective story and deploying the most contemporary scholarship on what actually counted as “history” in the ancient world, Professor Bauckham makes a powerful case that the gospels may in fact put us in touch with those who knew the Lord, and certainly put us in touch with those who knew those who knew the Lord. Give it to any priest or deacon you know who preaches out of the “that didn’t really happen”/historical-critical playbook; but get yourself a copy, too… . Continue Reading »

Cultural Despondency and Cultural Motherhood

Today the Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. On Saturday, we celebrated the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and in just two short weeks we will celebrate the Feast of the Incarnation: Christmas. The Immaculate Conception, the Feast of our Lady of Guadalupe, and even Christmas are particularly maternal feasts. They recognize the key role that women—especially Mary—have played in the history of Christianity. And they recognize the degree to which the Church reveres the feminine genius, and the genius of motherhood… . Continue Reading »

Between Loving and Labeling

I want to love, again. Youth cannot be reclaimed, and I would not want to, but increasingly I feel a need—a calling, perhaps—to find a way to reach back and recapture one aspect of my youth: a willingness to be a little naive, to take people as they are, rather than as I believe I can classify them. It was how I lived before I became very engaged with politics and religion and chose labeling over loving . . . . Continue Reading »

Purify Her Uncleanness

These words come from the Orthodox Christian childbearing rites contained in the liturgical handbook, the Great Book of Needs. The first few lines are from “Prayers on the First Day after a Woman has Given Birth to a Child,” or the “First Day” prayers, which are prayed by a priest at a new mother’s bedside soon after birth. The last few lines are from “Prayers for a Woman on the Fortieth Day of Childbirth,” or the “Churching” prayers, which are said when a woman first returns to church with her newborn… . Continue Reading »

Martinis and Taxes

How do we deal with unsustainable spending and borrowing? The formula is simple: less spending”or more accurately less rapid increases in spending”and more revenue. But can we generate more revenue without suppressing economic growth, which is after all what will allow us to pay for government over the long term? … Continue Reading »

Abortion’s Backdoor Maneuver at the U.N.

One of the great pro-life victories internationally over the past twenty years has been the defeat of the attempt to make abortion a universally recognized right through U.N. documents. Abortion is not mentioned in a single hard-law treaty and therefore has not risen to the legal level of a “human right.” … Continue Reading »

The Christian Origins of Islam

Near the bottom of the pit of hell, Dante encounters a man walking with his torso split from chin to groin, his guts and other organs spilling out. “See how I tear myself!” the man shrieks. “See how Mahomet is deformed and torn!” For us, the scene is not only gruesome but surprising, for Dante is not in a circle of false religion but in a circle reserved for those who tear the body of Christ. Like many medieval Christians, Dante views Islam less as a rival religion than as a schismatic form of Christianity… . Continue Reading »

Confessions of a Protestant Christmas Tree Amateur

Two years ago, my wife and I had the good fortune of acquiring a small place in the Appalachians, just south of the Virginia border. This was a blessing and one of those rare things in life that was almost entirely unexpected. This part of the Appalachians is Christmas tree country, and our 1920s home came with a plot of three hundred Fraser firs and the first fertile land we had had in five years (not counting a flowerbed in Connecticut that we had to leave before the spring, though we were told it did very well). We were chomping at the bit, as it were, to plow, plant, weed, tend, and trim every green thing on our humble two acres… . Continue Reading »

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