• Thoughts

    Silent War

    I have been engaged in a war since birth, as has each and every one of you. I bet you didn’t know that. Don’t feel bad; neither did I. The enemy is good. It has endless resources, recruits, and weapons…

  • Thoughts

    Stop and Look Around

    I have so many ways of collecting my thoughts—or more accurately, I guess, of prompting my thoughts in an attempt to write something coherent. It’s good to look around, and doing so today netted me the following in Evernote (ironically…

  • Thoughts

    Know It All

    The Volume Library. God love you, Dad. When you signed on the dotted line for that scam, you were trying to do the right thing. Your blood sugar may have been on the way down and you just wanted your…

  • Thoughts

    All We Need for the Journey

    For one reason or another, I saved a Magnificat meditation by Dorothy Day. Her words appear in purple. Today the atmosphere is very heavy. Rain threatens. So often one is overcome with a tragic sense of the meaninglessness of our…

  • Thoughts

    Who Do You Serve?

    Father Anthony Giambrone, O.P. wrote a Magnificat essay about Peter’s shadow, which just so happened to heal those thronging about him after Jesus’ death and resurrection. Our monthly guide through the more whimsical elements of the Bible acknowledges folklore motifs…

  • Thoughts

    Recognizing Limits

    Leo Tostoy believed that all history is essentially false. How is it that two people can witness the same accident and give conflicting testimonies only a few minutes after it happens, with both witnesses convinced they are sharing accurate information?…

  • Thoughts

    Prove It?

    Madeleine L’Engle wrote, “The deepest scientific truths cannot be expressed directly,” and I have to wonder if that’s because there may not be any scientific truths. Cynical, I know, but just today, I mentioned to Dennis that a certain someone,…

  • Thoughts

    How Absolute?

    Two chapters a day is my quota for War and Peace. It’s possible that I will make it more of a priority at some point, but for now, I am content with my pace and have been pleasantly surprised by…

  • Thoughts

    The Bad and the Good

    So, I learned a new word: ponerology, which is the study of evil. I guess in some ways, I have been an accidental student of ponerology for approximately a year now (give or take a few). Well, then again, if…

  • Thoughts

    Who Does Your Thinking?

    A very short poem from Robert Louis Stevenson ran through my mind this morning: The world is so full of a number of things,I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings. Now, I can’t personally vouch for the…