Are You Threatening Me?
The husband of a sister-in-law wore a t-shirt emblazoned with a vintage political “pairing” to the most recent family Christmas gathering: “Reagan/Bush 84.” This fellow and I were standing in the kitchen, where the conversation was lagging. Therefore, I decided…
Freedom is Hard to Hold
Explanations are for English Papers In the process of putting away Christmas decorations recently, I washed five cut crystal vases and two candlesticks and arranged them in pleasing groupings on the mantel. There’s still a big empty space in the…
Taking a Safety
I got to the computer yesterday by way of Stephen Harrod Buhner’s Ensouling Language, a book I am still s-l-o-w-l-y making my way through (and now that I’ve shared it with Dennis, it’s often in his office, where I don’t…
One Piece Leads to Another
Well, goodness knows, I’m tenacious. I certainly wouldn’t be here writing if I weren’t. On my kitchen table right now sits a 28 x 22” slab of foamcore board and on it is a partially complete jigsaw puzzle. I wanted…
Of Men and Misunderstanding
To Share or Not to Share Two days ago, I began thinking in earnest about the balance between silence and expression. I am coming to understand how essential It is to express oneself and to be free to express oneself,…
Words and Light
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be blind? If so, whatever you’ve imagined is probably wrong. According to Jacques Lusseyran, who lost his sight in an accident when he was eight years old, the world doesn’t…
The Awful Futility of Explaining
In Marcel Billot’s foreword to Sacred Art by M.A. Couturier, he explains that L’Art Sacré was a review run for a time by two Dominican priests, Father Couturier and Father Pie-Raymond Régamey. They managed, apparently, to work together and produce…
Trust Issues
Domenique de Menil writes, in her foreword to Sacred Art, a collection of essays and reflections by M.A. Courturier, O.P. : “For Père Couturier, to be sure, straightforwardness, which begets clarity, was the simple and immediate principle of his personal…
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…
Don’t Feed the Psychopaths
I remember my aunt’s shock when she learned that I am not a fan of “higher education” and that I think far too many people choose to attend (and pay for) college. After all, I used to pontificate about the…
Gift Giving
Recent days have been especially conversation heavy. After all, there is a lot going on in the world, and nothing is as it seems. I depend on others—in books, online—to help me see what is beneath the surface, and I…
Where I am Going
Where I am going, you cannot drive me. Those words are there in my mind, for one reason or another. I read them somewhere once, and they were appropriate for the speaker uttering them. I don’t know that they would…
