December 2010
14 posts
The Overshadow
“…the power of the Most High will overshadow you…” - Luke 1:35
When we think of God, and
Angels, and the Angel,
we suppose ineffable light.
So there is surprise in the air when we see him bring Mary,
in her lit room, a gift of darkness. What is happening under that
huge wing of shade? In that mystery what in-breaking wildness fills her?
She is astonished and...
“Because if this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor,...”
– Stephen Colbert
Andrew Hudgins, "Praying Drunk" →
Our Father who art in heaven, I am drunk. Again. Red wine. For which I offer thanks. I ought to start with praise, but praise comes hard to me. I stutter. Did I tell you about the woman whom I taught, in bed, this prayer? It starts with praise; the simple form keeps things in order. I hear from her sometimes. Do you? And after love, when I was hungry, I said, Make me something to eat. She...
WatchMonastery Mustard
“My impression is that we have seen, for perhaps one hundred and fifty years, a...”
– Wendell Berry, Standing by Words
November 2010
16 posts
“As a reader, I am unavoidably a writer. Many years of trying to write what I...”
– Wendell Berry
The Windhover
I caught this morning morning’s minion, kingdom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-drawn Falcon, in his riding Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing In his ecstasy! Then off, off forth on swing, As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend; the hurl and gliding Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding...
“I think atheists miss the point. I don’t grant atheism and agnosticism the same...”
– New Statesman - The NS Interview: James Ellroy, author (via ayjay)
But I Can't
Time will say nothing but I told you so, Time only knows the price we have to pay; If I could tell you I would let you know. If we should weep when clowns put on their show, If we should stumble when musicians play, Time will say nothing but I told you so. There are no fortunes to be told, although, Because I love you more than I can say, If I could tell you I would let you know. The winds...
“Today not few young people, stunned by the infinite possibilities offered by...”
–
Pope Benedict XVI, speaking at the Pontifical Council for Culture’s conference on “Culture of communications and new languages.” (Via)
(via thepoptimist)
The New Mortality
Actually there won’t be mortality by the end of the twenty-first century. Not in the sense that we have known it. Not if you take advantage of the twenty-first century’s brain-porting technology. Up until now, our mortality was tied to the longevity of our hardware. When the hardware crashed, that was it. For many of our forebears, the hardware gradually deteriorated before it...
“We know that having two thousand Facebook friends is not what it looks like. We...”
– Zadie Smith
Wesley Hill on the church mentoring the fatherless →
“We are much too much inclined in these days to divide people into permanent...”
– Dorthy L. Sayers, Are Women Human?
Insignificant Is Beautiful →
“The search for significance, especially if it requires changing the world, can blind us to the everyday tasks, the mundane duties, and the dirty work that is part and parcel of the life of discipleship. I have a good friend who has been caring for his elderly mother. She sits in a wheel chair, complains a lot, and requires constant attention — to the point of cleaning her up after regular...
“The moral authority of Jon Stewart is a baffling phenomenon. ‘He’s Cronkite,’...”
– Leon Wieseltier. Okay, Leon, I got to give you props for that one. (via ayjay)
October 2010
10 posts
“Polits have a middle-class upbringing and usually come from the suburbs. Some...”
– The Hipster Handbook. The text that first profiled me as a hipster back in 2003. When it said “they have been known to decorate…with mounted deer heads” or “Polits who are editors often get fired for writing bold notes in the margins like, ‘this paragraph sucks’...
Apologetic Shoulder Blades by Baths →
“St. Aelred, in his dialogue Spiritual Friendship, said that friends were called...”
– Eve Tushnet, in a thoughtful WaPo article (via wesleyhill)
WatchMusic: ‘Hall’ by Baths Original Footage: Sid Templer and Tony Dalmunt - Archive.org
Apply- Glasser
“What we have in Hipster Christianity is a jaded ethnography written by someone...”
– The Other Journal at Mars Hill Graduate School (via ayjay)
September 2010
15 posts
“As a man dies many times before he’s dead, so does he wend from birth to birth...”
– From Godric by Frederick Buechner
“Language can create faith but can’t sustain it. This is true of all human...”
– Christian Wiman
“Last year I found myself in charge of an unusually large group playdate, half a...”
– Downtime | The New Republic (via ayjay)
Robert Hayden, "Those Winter Sundays" →
Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. When the rooms were warm, he’d call, and slowly I would rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house, Speaking indifferently to him, who...
Swedish Identity and the Rise of Nationalism →
David’s article for the Huffington Post (portraitoftheartistasayoungman)