mine iron heart

Adios, El Blog-o

2008-12-31T09:07:00.003-06:00

Obviously 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 & Thanks -

Covet.

2008-09-24T14:23:00.002-06:00

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 on

The Virtues & "Morality"

2008-09-18T08:09:00.002-06:00

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

"A Single Moral Community That Includes Everyone"?

2008-09-10T09:03:00.005-06:00

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

James Lileks . . .

2008-09-10T08:38:00.001-06:00

. . . is a national treasure. (This is only tangentially a Palin post.)

"The Annihilation Of Concrete Individuals"

2008-09-10T08:03:00.003-06:00

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

Meanwhile, Back At The Times

2008-09-07T06:15:00.004-06:00

John 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

Piper Palin, Baby Groomer

2008-09-04T12:48:00.001-06:00

Sermon: Who Do You Say That I Am?

2008-09-03T12:46:00.002-06:00

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

Feminism & Feminism.

2008-09-03T09:08:00.003-06:00

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...

Classic Maddux

2008-08-28T08:32:00.003-06:00

Greg 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.

Getting Serious About The MDG's

2008-08-27T08:33:00.002-06:00

Alan 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,

It Has A Creepy Infant Of Prague (w/ Armor!)

2008-08-20T12:15:00.002-06:00

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

A Warm Gun, &c.

2008-08-20T07:40:00.003-06:00

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

The Dark Night & Love.

2008-08-12T07:01:00.002-06:00

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”

Headline.

2008-08-07T09:26:00.002-06:00

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.

Doctors & Mohels, Progress & Fidelity

2008-08-07T08:44:00.002-06:00

An 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

Now What?

2008-08-06T07:54:00.004-06:00

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 someday

What To Do?

2008-08-05T08:51:00.003-06:00

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 —

Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, R.I.P.

2008-08-04T08:13:00.005-06:00

“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 my

Top 100 Novels

2008-08-03T07:29:00.002-06:00

A unified list.Via Arts & Letters Daily.

Killer, Lover.

2008-08-03T06:35:00.005-06:00

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

Nature Red In Tooth And Claw

2008-07-31T18:16:00.004-06:00

In 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).

There Will Always Be (Catholic) England...

2008-07-31T12:27:00.004-06:00

...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. "From Out the Flaminian Gate," a pastoral letter longer on baroque rhetoric than ecumenical diplomacy, caused a

Holy Communion: The Homilies.

2008-07-30T12:10:00.003-06:00

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).

Mannish Boy

2008-07-29T11:22:00.003-06:00

Turns out my invincible innumeracy is just more evidence of my masculine virility: The New York Times is determined to show that women are discriminated against in the sciences; too bad the facts say otherwise. A new study has “found that girls perform as well as boys on standardized math tests,” claims a July 25 article by Tamar Lewin—thus, the underrepresentation of women on science faculties

Blessed Wm. Wilberforce

2008-07-29T09:17:00.003-06:00

Here's a review of a new biography of William Wilberforce, who is commemorated in the Episcopal Church's calendar tomorrow: Wilberforce likened his conversion, only a year after his election, to wakening from a dream and "recovering the use of my reason after a delirium." The experience gave his humanitarian impulse a more particular form. The sentiment against the slave trade had grown in the

The Osteen/Schori Axis

2008-07-29T08:09:00.003-06:00

The Atlantic's Ross Douthat has some further thoughtful insights in relation to Jody Bottum's very fine and instructive essay "The Death of Protestant America" in the current First Things (not yet available online but lengthily excerpted below):The Norman Vincent Peale bit, I think, is particularly telling, because it gets at something that I think is often missed about the current religious

Sermon: Mustard Seeds & the Promise

2008-07-28T09:33:00.006-06:00

Pentecost XI (Proper 12a)Rom 8.26-34; Mt 13.13-13,44-4927 July 2008Church of the Holy Communion + + + We continue this morning working our way through this middle portion of St. Matthew’s Gospel, chock full as it is with the parables of our Lord. The last two Sundays, Frs. Clarke and Sanderson, respectively, have begun their expositions with a small confession of their own sins.

Colbert On Lambeth

2008-07-25T12:22:00.001-06:00

Eyebrows.

2008-07-21T13:06:00.005-06:00

The Most Rev'd Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, and The Rt Rev'd Robert Duncan, Bishop of Pittsburgh, respectively. Via George Congar.

Theodicy

2008-07-21T08:11:00.002-06:00

Michael Novak on the problem of evil in USA Today: The New Yorker (of all magazines) gave a good number of pages early last month to a quite brilliant book reviewer, James Wood, for a long essay on why he could no longer be a Christian. Stories like his are widespread. They usually cite the natural evils that too often crash upon humans — in China a stupefying earthquake, in Burma a cyclone,

Sartor Plays Scarlatti

2008-07-17T08:22:00.003-06:00

Sonata K. 9 by Domenico Scarlatti, performed by Uruguayan guitarist Marco Sartor, winner of the 2008 JoAnn Falletta International Guitar Concerto Competition.This video was recorded at the Church of the Holy Communion, Charleston SC.

N.O.W., Let Us Pray.

2008-07-15T07:57:00.005-06:00

Jody Bottum has a long piece in the new First Things on "The Death of Protestant America". Following is the section focusing on the Episcopal Church. Not yet available online sans subscription, so why don't you subscribe? From the beginning, Protestants in America felt some interdenominational unity simply because they were all Protestants—named by their protest against Rome. The United States

Limping Towards Lambeth

2008-07-14T09:03:00.002-06:00

Jordan Hylden considers Lambeth: Nearly six hundred purple-shirted Anglican bishops will gather this week in England for the Lambeth Conference, the decennial meeting of all the bishops in the global Anglican Communion. Of course, there would have been well over eight hundred, but for the fact that the bishops of five national Anglican provinces—about a quarter of Anglican bishops overall—decided

The Gynophobe Craptocracy

2008-07-14T08:32:00.003-06:00

Mary Eberstadt's "new atheist" alter-ego in "Loser Letter" #8 (the best yet): As I mentioned earlier, my personal religious belief took the usual battering by atheists and their fellow-travelers when I went off to college. What was left of it then got further blown away by my idiotosaurus boyfriend Lobo (about whom You’ll hear more in my next Letter than You ever wanted to, but it can’t be helped

It Goes Way On Back

2008-07-11T06:26:00.003-06:00

Fr. Neuhaus at the annual convention of the National Right to Life Committee:We shall not weary, we shall not rest, until every unborn child is protected in law and welcomed in life. We shall not weary, we shall not rest, until all the elderly who have run life’s course are protected against despair and abandonment, protected by the rule of law and the bonds of love. We shall not weary, we shall

Quote of the Day.

2008-07-07T12:18:00.004-06:00

"Slow down while I cut the lemon."From this fascinating bit of analysis. Posted as a seasonal compliment to the bourbon bit below. I expect I'm about the furthest thing possible from a "New Labour wide boy," but until I visited St. Lucia last year, I had never heard of putting anything other than a lime in a G&T. England and America - two nations separated by a citrus slice.

GAFCON...

2008-07-07T08:09:00.002-06:00

Jordan Hylden on GAFCONThe GAFCON answer to this question seems to be a revived and reinforced confessionalism, based on the Thirty-Nine Articles and the fourteen tenets of the Jerusalem Declaration. As the statement makes patently clear, the GAFCON Anglicans have little confidence that the existing structures of Anglicanism can be trusted to judge in matters of orthodoxy and Church discipline.

Evocation v. Connoirsseurship

2008-07-03T08:25:00.006-06:00

"The pleasure of knocking back bourbon lies in the plane of the aesthetic but at the opposite pole from connoisseurship. My preference for the former is or is not deplorable depending on one's value systems - that is to say, how one balances out the Epicurean virtues of cultivating one's sensory end organs with the greatest discrimination and at least cost to one's health, against the virtue of

Glove Work.

2008-07-03T08:06:00.002-06:00

Normally I don't like to acknowledge even the existence of the American League, but this play from last night's Tigers-Twins game is pretty nice.

"Compassionate Significance" Or "Quiet Desperation?"

2008-07-02T11:32:00.003-06:00

A little snapshot of typical Episcopal Church self-aggrandizing (and highly mockable) pomposity:The "historic" Episcopal church in the town where I live — it’s historic, by the way, because George Washington worshiped there — recently hung a banner on the elegant wrought-iron railings that top the brick wall around the 18th century churchyard. Suspended just above the spot where a marble slab

Wordle & the Trinity.

2008-07-01T08:01:00.002-06:00

Plugged my Trinity Sunday sermon into Wordle (click to enlarge).

Dead Or Alive - Who Cares?

2008-06-30T09:17:00.002-06:00

I'll probably wait for the DVD, but this is a good review (here the adjective "good" modifies the noun "review;" as to whether the movie itself is any good, read the review). If slush-brained stylishness is what you crave, Wanted’s got it by the glop. By the time the credits roll, you’ll be jonesing for one of those anxiety pills yourself. Everything on screen seems to be punctuated with

Angels In The Wilderness

2008-06-26T08:16:00.002-06:00

Gilbert Meilaender on the limits of parenting:There’s an undercurrent to parenthood that makes us uneasy. “Even in the best of circumstances,” we will eventually have to leave our children behind. We will die. However desperately we would like to secure their future, would like all to be well for them, that future will be taken out of our hands—because, for us, it will be no more.It is, then, no

Transfixed By A Sun Ray

2008-06-23T08:01:00.004-06:00

A poignant, life-affirming piece from Allen Shawn: For my sister, Mary, who has lived in a Maryland institution for the mentally retarded since she was 8, there’s no hiding the fact that food is central. When she is eating, food appears to be the focus of her attention. She doesn’t like to be distracted from it by conversations, let alone by dramatic events. In anticipating the birthday lunches

The Suffering Church

2008-06-23T07:21:00.002-06:00

In Iraq: In Iraq the “surge” is working, but at the same time the Iraqi Christian community is dying. Hardly anyone seems to know, and those who know don’t seem to care. In former times, the violent persecution of Christians in a country effectively under the rule of a Western, Christian power would have been unthinkable. But not, it seems, in the enlightened 21st century.The names may be

It's "Coke" Whence Come I

2008-06-18T08:26:00.007-06:00

Important research; click here to enlarge and then click on states to get county by county statistics. Via the Corner.

Age Serves Youth.

2008-06-17T08:25:00.002-06:00

Amy Welborn on the fallacy at the heart of so much youth ministry:Those of us who work with teens, teach teens or have teens living in our houses think a lot about…teens. We can’t stop pondering youth ministry and ministry to youth and what to do with the kids and how to keep the kids engaged and excited and connected. We’re extremely susceptible to Evangelical Envy. For so long - longer than we

"The Perfect Fifth"

2008-06-16T07:48:00.004-06:00

I've been chuckling about this since last week, though it pains me to admit that the French can be funny (on purpose, I mean; they're always good for a laugh in another less charitable sense). Some of the language is inappropriate for a family blog.It's from a French television show, Kamelott, in which each episode clocks in at less than five minutes. Via the First Things blog.

Camera.

2008-06-16T07:27:00.003-06:00

Mt. St. Michel, by Chad Weckler, via Matthew Lickona.

Well, Dang.

2008-06-10T12:31:00.003-06:00

Last week my wife and I flew to Alaska for the first time. Georgetown University political theorist Patrick Deneen thinks we've also flown to the Alaska for the last time - afraid he might be right. I've just finished listening to an NPR program, "On Point," the subject of which was the prospect of "the end of cheap airfare," or - to be more blunt - the end of air travel for most of us. Its

Noxious Vermin: Their Care, Nurture & Cursing

2008-06-10T09:21:00.002-06:00

Returned from vacation to find a mild flea infestation in the house (counterintuitively enough, this is because the dog - who is slathered in pesticide - was also away from home during this time). Here's how we're dealing with the problem: 7. DEPRECATORY BLESSING AGAINST PESTS (mice and rats, locusts, worms, etc.) The priest vests in surplice and purple stole, and coming to

Call Your Mothers.

2008-06-10T08:54:00.004-06:00

Audio lectures via Ancient Faith Radio: The Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius - Rome, Constantinople and Canterbury, Mother Churches? The Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius was hosted by St. Vladimir's Seminary for their conference entitled, "Rome, Constantinople and Canterbury. Mother Churches?" This Fellowship, founded in 1928, exists to work and pray for greater understanding and

Sermon: Trinity Sunday.

2008-05-19T13:06:00.007-06:00

Trinity Sunday Gn 1.1-2.4a; 2 Cor 13.11-14; Mt 28.16-20 18 May 2008 Church of the Holy Communion PSA+ + + + In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth... Yes, obviously, I want to say; we’re all here, after all – but why? Why, “in the beginning,” did God create the heavens and the earth? That of course is philosophy’s great question – Why is there something rather than nothing?

Atheists & Losers.

2008-05-19T09:17:00.004-06:00

Mary Eberstadt has compiled "The Loser Letters", a satirical response to the "new atheism."Dear Sirs,Speaking just for this Atheist convert, congratulations, Guys, You really did it! Thanks to all Your hard work, the rest of us know once and for all that the so-called “God” is everything You say he is: the biggest fraud of all time, cosmic Zero, ultimate no-show. And after all those centuries and

Agreeably Concientious.

2008-05-19T08:57:00.003-06:00

Personality groups cluster regionally. Explains a lot.Apparently large swaths of the "heartland" have no personality whatsoever.Read all about it.

What Man Can Conceive, Man Can Achieve.

2008-05-19T08:52:00.003-06:00

Robotic Beer Launching Refrigerator - video powered by MetacafeOther similarly useful devices here; I'll leave the theological reflection to Thunder Jones.Via Jonah Goldberg.

Good Taste In Music.

2008-05-16T15:13:00.004-06:00

I like a nice Napa zinfandel and Mark Olsen-still-in-the-band-era Jayhawks.Playing a certain type of music can enhance the way wine tastes, research by psychologists suggests.The Heriot Watt University study found people rated the change in taste by up to 60% depending on the melody heard.The researchers said cabernet sauvignon was most affected by "powerful and heavy" music, and chardonnay by "

Reducing Morality To "Style."

2008-05-16T07:07:00.007-06:00

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese reaches out from beyond the grave to comment on the specious legal reasoning and cultural context and ramifications of the California "right to marriage" decision:The language of individual choice or individual right has proven extraordinarily seductive both as an invitation to do as one pleases with a clear conscience and as a deterrent against disapproval of the choices

But I Feel Worse.

2008-05-15T08:55:00.001-06:00

Big Cow.

2008-05-14T11:52:00.001-06:00

Read all about him.

Trivializing Technology.

2008-05-13T07:51:00.005-06:00

Emory University professor of English Mark Bauerlein, author of The Dumbest Generation, is a luddite curmudgeon, and may his tribe increase (says the priest with a blog): To Mark Bauerlein, a professor of English at Emory University, the present is a good time to be young only if you don't mind a tendency toward empty-headedness. In "The Dumbest Generation," he argues that cultural and

When & Whom To Kill.

2008-05-12T09:07:00.006-06:00

Very good panel discussion at Princeton last week re the destruction of early human life. Here's the video. And here are Ryan Anderson's summation and reflections: “Look, when we think about ending an early human life, this is something that is really bad for the embryo or early fetus that dies, it’s losing out tremendously—I agree with that as I already said. And then you said that it’s one of

Dr. Pepper & His Colleagues.

2008-05-08T12:35:00.002-06:00

Precisely why God gave us the internet.Via the immensely valuable Museum of Online Museums.

Nice Rotation

2008-05-07T09:33:00.003-06:00

Career statistics of Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz: Pitcher W-L ERA Ks Walks Cy Young Awards Greg Maddux 349-217 3.12 3,298 977 4 Tom Glavine 303-200 3.51 2,581 1,475 2 John Smoltz 210-147 3.25 3,011 992 1 Total 862

Spare The Rod...

2008-05-07T08:01:00.002-06:00

From here.

Morality & The Secular Left.

2008-05-06T07:51:00.004-06:00

Apropos of Professor Webb's jeremiad below, here's a review of Susan Neiman's Moral Clarity: a Guide for Grown-up Idealists: An American philosophy professor who directs the Einstein Forum in Potsdam, Germany, Ms. Neiman is a subtle and energetic guide to the unjustly maligned Western "canon." But she is not some kind of scold or stodgy traditionalist, wagging a disapproving finger at our fall

Freshmen Forewarned.

2008-05-06T07:35:00.002-06:00

Stephen Webb, professor of religion & philosophy at Wabash College (and author of Dylan Redeemed: Highway 61 to Saved), addressing the incoming freshmen of the class of 2012: Christians believe that God became human in Jesus Christ. If so, it follows that there is something called humanity. That is, humans have a nature, a shared or common nature. Human nature is not just a social construction.

Sermon: Ascension Day

2008-05-05T11:09:00.007-06:00

Ascension DayActs 1.11; Eph 1.15-23; Lk 24.49-531 May 2008Holy CommunionPSA+ + + + I stopped by the Hallmark store earlier today to buy an Ascension card for my wife, along with some of those great Ascension Day chocolates. Would you believe it, they were out!? But of course they weren’t actually sold out; they never had any. You can by Christmas cards, you can buy Easter cards.

Los Angeles Is A Fascist Police State...

2008-04-25T08:05:00.002-06:00

...where you can go to jail for 45 days for serving bacon.

Fun With The Academy.

2008-04-24T07:05:00.003-06:00

Stefan Kanfer considers the joys of the campus novel: "I expect you'll be becoming a schoolmaster, sir. That's what most of the gentlemen does, sir, that gets sent down for indecent behavior." - Evelyn Waugh, Decline and Fall, 1928 Those were the days. A novelist

The Way, The Truth, The Optional Extra.

2008-04-22T11:04:00.004-06:00

Hacker: Being a bishop is just a matter of status? Dressing up in cassocks and gaiters? Sir Humphrey: Yes, but gaiters are generally worn only at significant religious events, like the royal garden party. Hacker: Why? Sir Humphrey: Well, the church is trying to be more relevant. Hacker: To God? Sir Humphrey: Oh, of course not, Prime Minister. I meant relevant in sociological terms. Hacker: So the

Bye, Bye Tag.

2008-04-15T09:19:00.002-06:00

Seriously. A playground pastime is getting a timeout this spring at a McLean elementary school. Robyn Hooker, principal of Kent Gardens Elementary School, has told students they may no longer play tag during recess after determining that the game of chasing, dodging and yelling "You're it!" had gotten out of hand. Hooker explained to parents in a letter this month that tag had become a game "

Ecce Pontifex Et Homo .

2008-04-15T07:50:00.004-06:00

Apropos of his visit to these shores, Delia Gallagher offers a primer on Benedict the human being: The pope has a little white house in Regensburg, Germany, bought in the hopes of retirement. He had it built in the seventies for himself and his sister Maria. He was teaching at the University of Regensburg; Maria helped him transcribe his writings. His brother, Georg, an important director of

Maddux.

2008-04-14T07:46:00.003-06:00

Great article on the genius of Greg Maddux: How many times had he heard someone say it? How many times over the past 22 years had some catcher or coach or broadcaster said, "Greg Maddux? I bet you could catch him with your eyes closed"? Sounded plausible enough, maybe coaxed a chuckle or two from the pitcher, but mostly it was just something to say. Nobody realized it was just a matter of time

The Benedict Moment.

2008-04-11T11:23:00.002-06:00

"John Paul made you burst into tears. Benedict makes you think. It is more pleasurable to weep, but at the moment, perhaps it is more important to think."--Peggy Noonan. Here's the whole thing.

An Atheist's Longing.

2008-04-09T14:33:00.003-06:00

Ecologist Paul Colinvaux, interviewed on the radio program "Living on Earth", looks back over a long and fruitful career, but contemplates his end with melancholy (and either contradiction or irony):GELLERMAN: In the Galapagos, you also discovered a plant. COLINVAUX: Oh, yes. GELLERMAN: It's named after you. COLINVAUX: Passionflora Colinvauxiae. Yes, it's one that Darwin missed. GELLERMAN: I

Check Your Conscience At The Exam Room Door.

2008-04-09T08:47:00.002-06:00

Pro-Life Doctors: A New Oxymoron? By Christopher Kaczor From First Things - "On the Square" Tuesday, April 8, 2008, 5:43 AM In November 2007, the Committee on Ethics of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) published Committee Opinion # 385 entitled, “The Limits of Conscientious Refusal in Reproductive Medicine.” The committee opinion sought to “maximize

Leaving Aside His Pogontrophy...

2008-04-09T07:59:00.004-06:00

...he's a serious thinker.Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart considers a collection of essays by and the intellectual attainments of Archbishop Rowan Williams: In a bracingly venomous Spectator article on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent remarks about sharia law in Britain, the journalist Rod Liddle opined that it must be Rowan Williams’s beard that has won him the reputation of an

Goober Juice.

2008-04-03T13:21:00.002-06:00

Uh, yes, I'd try a shot of this: So Tyler became the clear victor not too long ago when he turned up something called, somewhat disturbingly, Peanut Lolita, a thick, peanut-flavored liqueur that once was produced by Continental Distilling in Linfield, Pa. The logo and fonts on the label suggest the early 1960s, but according to what little research exists, Peanut Lolita was still around in the

Market Withdrawal.

2008-04-03T13:01:00.003-06:00

Some argue for an organ market (a licit one) on libertarian, free market grounds, but conservatives have always realized that conserving the things we value most means withdrawing them from the market. Here's Roger Scruton, via Alan Jacobs, via Rod Dreher: The free market is a necessary part of any stable community, and the arguments for maintaining it as the core of economic life were

How Much For The Kidney?

2008-04-03T12:51:00.004-06:00

From the Holy Communion newsletter:Parts is Parts?I’ve been reading a bit these last few weeks about organ donation (don’t worry, so far as I know my own organs and those of my loved ones are in relatively fine fettle). I’ve read some odd things, too: a serious proposal by a serious intellectual for “death by donation,” wherein prisoners on death row would be executed by the surgical

An Organ Market?

2008-04-03T12:39:00.005-06:00

Upcoming from Caritas Fellowship:ORGANS FOR $ALE? Thinking about Transplantation. Gilbert Meilaender, Ph.D. Monday, 21 April 20084.00 PMSt. Luke's Chapel, MUSC (Map)Free & Open to the PublicInaugural Caritas Fellowship Lecture in Bioethics"All organ transplantation, ...even when organs are given, not taken or purchased, invites us to think of ourselves and others in ways that risk the loss of

Easter & Risk/Benefit Anaysis.

2008-04-03T12:36:00.001-06:00

From Godspy:A few months ago Jimmy came to say that his bank card had been stolen. He wondered if I would call his Credit Union down south so his account would not be robbed. I called and agreed to receive mail for him at the parish office. A friend of mine groaned, “Oh, you should never have agreed to accept mail for him, you ought not to accept mail for anyone.” I groaned interiorly as I had

Brother, Bloodied.

2008-03-10T12:23:00.002-06:00

Elder brother Jimmie injured at the Polk County Cattleman's Association's annual "Wild Cow Milking Contest".

Eden Yesterday On Today.

2008-03-04T09:42:00.001-06:00

Dawn Eden, author of The Thrill of the Chaste and speaker for the Church of the Holy Communion's parish retreat, yesterday on the Today show:

Jonesing.

2008-02-14T14:52:00.000-06:00

Temptation & The Son Of God

2008-02-12T12:56:00.000-06:00

I Lent – A Mt 4.1-11 10 February 2008 Church of the Holy Communion Fr. Patrick S. Allen + + + In the Bible study I lead over at MUSC, we are working our way through the Apostles’ Creed, and we had quite an interesting discussion, I thought, when we considered the Creed’s first article, which begins almost exactly as does that of the Nicene Creed which we will say together in about twelve

Lent-O-Rama

2008-02-06T16:25:00.000-06:00

Lent a' la Vatican.Practically no posting from me till the great fifty days.

Grace In "Groundhog Day"

2008-02-06T15:21:00.000-06:00

A friend passes along this excellent essay on the workings and outworkings of the Benedictine virtue of stability. Br. Christian Raab, OSB Saint Meinrad Archabbey The 1993 Harold Ramis film, "Groundhog Day," is the story of the television weatherman named Phil Connors, played by Bill Murray, who finds himself stuck in a kind of time warp in which he is forced to relive the same day over

Ash Wednesday: The Homily.

2008-02-06T15:12:00.000-06:00

Ash WednesdayJoel 2.1-17; 2 Cor 5.20b-6.10;Mt 6.1-6,16-216 February 2008Church of the Holy CommunionFr. Patrick S. Allen + + + I remember one Christmas morning in my early twenties, that in the bounty of presents given me by my mother, was a book. It was business management guru Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I said, “Thanks, Mom,” and tried not to dwell on the

Superbowl Lit.

2008-02-05T10:12:00.000-06:00

Pretty funny fake-famous-author Superbowl predictions over at McSweeney's: Cormac McCarthy:Overhead, the sun is a wrathful god. It is made to ravage a dying land. The boy stands in a dry gulch. He tilts his hat to the sting of the wind. These men are patriots, says The Coach. I reckon. Do you know their soul? Reckon not. A hoarse laugh echoes through the heat. It singes the cragged

Into The Great Silence: The Discussion.

2008-02-05T09:50:00.000-06:00

This must be the 10th post in which I've encourage folks to see the film, Into Great Silence. Here's a piece of Matthew Lickona and Ernie Grimm's post-viewing discussion: Ernie: I was watching this last night when I got up to get an orange. Eating oranges, or anything else for that mater, had never been a spiritual occurrence for me until last night. But after an hour and a half of that movie, I

Mine, Too.

2008-02-05T09:44:00.000-06:00

Headline of the day.Via The Corner.

You Can Say That Again.

2008-02-01T11:09:00.000-06:00

When marginality gets down and dirty with the hyper-alterity of a trans-gendered discourse that (re)figures the identity of the hegemonic Other, it turns out that nobody is listening.R.R. Reno, discussing the secret history (wink, wink) behind the neo-con engineered marginalization of the academy in public discourse

The Lost Gospel of "Lost"

2008-01-31T13:46:00.000-06:00

"I think religion becomes most meaningful in people’s lives when it’s told in the form of stories, where people can connect. I always judge a homily on how well a priest does at integrating whatever lessons of the week are in the gospel into stories. And those stories are the ones that I think really land for the parishioners much more so than some kind of didactic analysis of the readings or the

Mary, Ever-Virgin.

2008-01-30T13:59:00.000-06:00

". . . How typical of our age of minimalistic faith is the conceding of a virginal conception while dispensing the believer from having to accept a virginal birth. As if the second would not be as easy for God to bring about as the first. But then why? Because in the New Covenant the fruitfulness of virginal life (consider above all the Eucharist of Jesus), a fruitfulness not toward

Consecration Photographs.

2008-01-30T09:58:00.000-06:00

Lots of photos from the consecration of Mark Lawrence as 14th Bishop of South Carolina are here, the above picture of Fr. Dan Clarke, ssc, curate at the Church of the Holy Communion (top), and another of me and Fr. Jay Scott Newman, rector of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Greenville, SC.

That & $20,000 Will Get You . . .

2008-01-23T10:46:00.000-06:00

A cup of joe. But only for the enlightened. Today in the New York Times: WITH its brass-trimmed halogen heating elements, glass globes and bamboo paddles, the new contraption that is to begin making coffee this week at the Blue Bottle Café here looks like a machine from a Jules Verne novel, a 19th-century vision of the future.Called a siphon bar, it was imported from Japan at a total cost of