Which Character are You?
Once in a while, I remind myself that I used to get frustrated with people who wouldn’t hand out answers like candy. I liked the sound of this: “Literature leaves you with questions; lesser works give you all the answers,”…
The Compartmentalization of Attention
Thanks to the attention-span-killing Internet, it becomes harder to pay anything the attention it deserves. This works well for those who exploit it. What was earthshattering news last week can barely be recalled today. We more easily forget and, to…
Almost a Year
The day after Ash Wednesday, I remembered my not terribly solid Lenten tradition of reading The Gaze of Love by Sister Wendy Beckett, so I pulled the book off the shelf and quickly caught up. The subtitle is Meditations on…
Groupthink
Groupthink: A Study in Self Delusion turned out to be rather a different book that what I thought I was in for. I sometimes buy books impetuously, skimming descriptions as quickly as possible, glancing at a review or two, and…
Discernment and Desire
If nothing else, the last year has taught me to be more discerning. I have learned that little is as it seems and nothing that comes out of the mouths of the ruling elite or their propaganda machine is to…
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…
Such Times
“Courage, Merry.” Dennis, the kids, and I revived our Christmas tradition of watching The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It took a long time; we came to the end of all things just a couple of nights ago, and now,…
Whose Voices are in Your Head?
One of the greatest aspects of my little life centered here at home is the relative ease with which I can keep opinions, criticisms, and judgments out of my existence. There are times, of course, when I drag them in,…
An Inevitable Implication
My family and I spent the first day of the new year visiting Dennis’s parents in New Hampshire. I guess it’s nice to get away from home once in a while, but no more than that. I’ve become too much…
Roughly Recognized
According to Gary Saul Morson in Hidden in Plain View, “In the early reviews of War and Peace, objections were raised most frequently against the plot. ‘This disordered heap of accumulated material,’ as one reviewer called it, was perceived as…
Be Still
A fifteenth-century poet named Hatton Ransetsu wrote a lovely haiku that I discovered quite by accident, but it speaks to me: Pine tree silhouettePainted by the harvest moonOn a shining sky I have photographed such silhouettes on more than one…
An Unfinished Film and Missing Pieces
Oh, what a world. These are interesting times, and I spend much of my day watching the movie that is playing on the screen. How will it end? I think I know, but we have not gotten to the climax,…
