tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-211740562024-03-07T15:17:44.316-06:00mine iron heartFather Allen's Bulletin Board:
miscellania, ecclesiana, arcana, americana, desiderata, addenda, effluvia, errata, etcetera...PSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.comBlogger705125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21174056.post-62635309444666994452008-12-31T09:07:00.003-06:002008-12-31T09:54:28.798-06:00Adios, El Blog-oObviously this blog has been on hiatus for quite a while - and this post makes it permanent. Lots going on - mainly the arrival of the little sweetie above - so no energy for this blog. I do have a Delicious page with links to articles & essays of interest to me (sermon fodder, &c.), which was the main point of this blog, anyway. Also, I'm on Facebook.Merry Christmas, Happy New Year &PSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21174056.post-37075636136678110462008-09-24T14:23:00.002-06:002008-09-24T14:27:38.705-06:00Covet.A Wired piece on Jay Walker's library. Nothing quite prepares you for the culture shock of Jay Walker's library. You exit the austere parlor of his New England home and pass through a hallway into the bibliographic equivalent of a Disney ride. Stuffed with landmark tomes and eye-grabbing historical objects—on the walls, on tables, standing on the floor—the room occupies about 3,600 square feet onPSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21174056.post-24446326688909616052008-09-18T08:09:00.002-06:002008-09-18T08:11:58.633-06:00The Virtues & "Morality"Edward Skidelsky on our enfeebled contemporary notions of and about morality:Morality is once again on the lips of politicians and commentators. David Cameron has warned that we are "becoming quite literally a de-moralised society, where nobody will tell the truth any more about what is good and bad." He is echoed by Richard Reeves, new director of Demos, who argued in last month's Prospect that PSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21174056.post-28988239874761560142008-09-10T09:03:00.005-06:002008-09-10T10:32:29.183-06:00"A Single Moral Community That Includes Everyone"?This, too, is only tangentially a Palin post.Michael Gerson has an important piece, dovetailing with Camiile Paglia's below, regarding the contradiction at the heart of the Democratic party's (and liberalism's more generally) stridently and adamantly pro-abortion stance: The wrenching diagnosis of 47 chromosomes must seem to parents like the end of a dream instead of the beginning of a life. But PSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21174056.post-70529658759033810602008-09-10T08:38:00.001-06:002008-09-10T08:39:42.888-06:00James Lileks . . .. . . is a national treasure. (This is only tangentially a Palin post.)PSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21174056.post-42352521698016047692008-09-10T08:03:00.003-06:002008-09-10T08:12:08.365-06:00"The Annihilation Of Concrete Individuals"Camille Paglia recognizes - and embraces - the murderous logic of "abortion rights" and at the same time recognizes and respects the ethical seriousness of the pro-life position: Let's take the issue of abortion rights, of which I am a firm supporter. As an atheist and libertarian, I believe that government must stay completely out of the sphere of personal choice. Every individual has an PSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21174056.post-3528666889845646022008-09-07T06:15:00.004-06:002008-09-10T10:55:42.166-06:00Meanwhile, Back At The TimesJohn Podhoretz yesterday at Contentions:Today, the New York Times published an article that, should it receive wide circulation (and it might, on the web), will do a great deal to harden evangelical attitudes against the supposed leftward swing — because it is an act of secular aggression against a believing Christian. Headlined “In Palin’s Life and Politics, Goal to Follow God’s Will,” the PSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21174056.post-86140758537454673002008-09-04T12:48:00.001-06:002008-09-04T12:48:45.494-06:00Piper Palin, Baby GroomerPSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21174056.post-25865935715040391602008-09-03T12:46:00.002-06:002008-09-03T12:50:17.671-06:00Sermon: Who Do You Say That I Am?Pentecost XV; Proper 16a Mt 16.13-20; Is 51.1-6 24 August 2008Fr. Patrick S. Allen We’ve been reading, and some few of us preaching, our way through St. Matthew’s gospel this summer, and this morning we’ve come to the hinge upon which the narrative turns – and does so as well in St. Mark’s and St. Luke’s gospels; they tell the story in much the same way. To put it simply, but not too PSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21174056.post-15498824477431901802008-09-03T09:08:00.003-06:002008-09-03T09:20:56.669-06:00Feminism & Feminism.Noonan on Palin: Because she jumbles up so many cultural categories, because she is a feminist not in the Yale Gender Studies sense but the How Do I Reload This Thang way, because she is a woman who in style, history, moxie and femininity is exactly like a normal American feminist and not an Abstract Theory feminist...PSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21174056.post-86697310032174685272008-08-28T08:32:00.003-06:002008-08-28T08:36:02.741-06:00Classic MadduxGreg Maddux had a little bit of a rough outing last night and even made an error, but this play is the vintage stuff and makes the case for his 18th Gold Glove.PSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21174056.post-46744276135863048532008-08-27T08:33:00.002-06:002008-08-27T08:38:00.804-06:00Getting Serious About The MDG'sAlan Jacobs considers the "commitment" of the Episcopal Church and the other sideline - I mean, mainline - Protestant denominations to the Millennium Development Goals:Mainline Protestants love to talk about the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. When Katherine Jefferts Schori was invested as Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in 2006, she offered not one word about sin, PSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21174056.post-37002181158371551542008-08-20T12:15:00.002-06:002008-08-20T12:26:19.622-06:00It Has A Creepy Infant Of Prague (w/ Armor!)I'm not nearly hip enough to even pick up a graphic novel in Barnes & Noble, but I might risk picking this one up: At first glance, it seems designed specifically to freak out everyone in its numerous potential overlapping markets--an intricately Gothic comic book, its dialogue written in elaborate blank verse, its plot inspired by and title borrowed from Dosdoyevsky's heavy-going Grand PSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21174056.post-85673056941665353372008-08-20T07:40:00.003-06:002008-08-20T07:51:00.611-06:00A Warm Gun, &c.Of Happiness, and its limited good: there is another threat, perhaps as dangerous: We are eradicating a major cultural force, the muse behind much art and poetry and music. We are annihilating melancholia. A recent poll conducted by the Pew Research Center shows that almost 85 percent of Americans believe that they are very happy or at least pretty happy. The psychological world is now abuzz PSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21174056.post-70948899270463530302008-08-12T07:01:00.002-06:002008-08-12T07:09:23.525-06:00The Dark Night & Love.That's Night not Knight. Michael Novak interviewed re his new book, No One Sees God: RR: The name of your new book is No One Sees God. What do you mean by that title?MN: When I was in high school and, after, in the novitiate, studying for the Holy Cross Fathers, I read a lot of St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Teresa of Avila, and St. John of the Cross, all of whom wrote movingly of the “dark night” PSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21174056.post-52788354962924449002008-08-07T09:26:00.002-06:002008-08-07T09:35:11.262-06:00Headline.What a world we live in. "Dog-cloner denies she was Mormon sex kidnapper Joyce McKinney" During a subsequent court appearance Joyce McKinney, is reputed to have said: “I loved him so much that I would ski naked down Mount Everest with a carnation up my nose if he asked me to.”Via the Corner.PSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21174056.post-45667718572665676142008-08-07T08:44:00.002-06:002008-08-07T08:52:45.955-06:00Doctors & Mohels, Progress & FidelityAn excerpt of Eric Cohen's new book, In the Shadow of Progress: When my son was born, he had trouble breathing—visible to his nervous father in the bluish tint of his skin, diagnosed by the attending physician from the low percentage of oxygen in his blood. So off he went, within minutes, to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). He was, truth to tell, the healthiest child in a row of babies PSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21174056.post-23762091199770041552008-08-06T07:54:00.004-06:002008-08-06T08:13:03.273-06:00Now What?Who knows?Jordan Hylden is cautiously optimistic and provides a handy "best of" digest of Lambeth reading: It’s over, but it’s far from done. The 2008 Lambeth Conference wrapped up this past Sunday, and all the purple-shirted Anglican bishops went back home to the everyday work of proclaiming the Gospel in dioceses from Singapore to South Dakota. Was it a success? Will Anglicans look back somedayPSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21174056.post-80240660596137454882008-08-05T08:51:00.003-06:002008-08-05T08:57:09.106-06:00What To Do?Alan Jacobs responds to Peter Ould at exactly the point where the rubber meets the road in the ecclesial mess that is the Anglican Communion: But let me address this issue more directly. I left the Episcopal Church and joined a new Anglican church largely because I did not want to have my son instructed in beliefs I do not share. Consider this: the man who is now the rector at the parish I left —PSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21174056.post-27840550649416360042008-08-04T08:13:00.005-06:002008-08-04T08:22:51.558-06:00Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, R.I.P.“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”______“I am of course confident that I will fulfill my tasks as a writer in all circumstances -- from myPSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21174056.post-47620353372756605442008-08-03T07:29:00.002-06:002008-08-03T07:34:02.853-06:00Top 100 NovelsA unified list.Via Arts & Letters Daily.PSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21174056.post-64985606420464015822008-08-03T06:35:00.005-06:002008-08-03T07:10:58.945-06:00Killer, Lover.While Wladek “Killer” Kowalski was feared by wrestling fans throughout the world, alter ego Walter Kowalski was a kind, gentle man with a heart of gold who wouldn’t swat a fly. A vegetarian who neither smoked nor drank, he loved poetry and classical music, especially Mozart, and was a deep thinker who studied theology and metaphysics. While fans lustily booed him every time he stepped inside the PSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21174056.post-71862749997245568532008-07-31T18:16:00.004-06:002008-07-31T18:26:16.578-06:00Nature Red In Tooth And ClawIn June we stayed for a week with friends in Anchorage, Alaska. This video was filmed yesterday just 200 yards from their house. This moose and victim/calf were hanging out in the neighborhood while we were there (wife/personal physician took the above picture of the same pair).PSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21174056.post-48952585238736330552008-07-31T12:27:00.004-06:002008-07-31T12:41:06.141-06:00There Will Always Be (Catholic) England......unless there's no England at all. George Weigel:In 1850, Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman wrote his fellow-Englishmen from Rome, announcing that Pius IX had restored the diocesan hierarchy in England and that he, Wiseman, would be cardinal archbishop of Westminster. <!-- PhotoThumb -->"From Out the Flaminian Gate," a pastoral letter longer on baroque rhetoric than ecumenical diplomacy, caused a PSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21174056.post-80280168265252247352008-07-30T12:10:00.003-06:002008-07-30T12:26:03.336-06:00Holy Communion: The Homilies.<!--[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->The "Homilies" page at the Church of the Holy Communion is just about up to date. Missing homilies belong mostly to Fr. Clarke who still scratches out his sermons with a quill pen in an obscure runic script (as above).PSA+http://www.blogger.com/profile/14620312716510520467noreply@blogger.com0