Interview on Theology & Practice of Funerals, At Eastern Christian Books

May 20, 2013 By

probably via TKB: Earlier I drew attention to a new book about the ars moriendi: Mark and Elizabeth Barna, A Christian Ending: a Handbook for Burial in the Ancient Christian Tradition (Divine Ascent Press, 2011), xii+169pp. I asked both authors for an interview, and here are their thoughts: more

Filed Under: Mackerel-Snapping Tagged With: , ,

“Mothers Who Lost Children to Overdose Find Hope”: Tessie Castillo

May 10, 2013 By

at The Fix: BJ Sanders of Lumberton, North Carolina, also felt the sting of judgment after her 19-year-old daughter, Shelly, overdosed in her college dorm room in 2005. BJ recalls visiting a grief group for parents and hearing, “Well, my child didn’t deserve to die—she didn’t do drugs.” The experience was so humiliating for BJ [...]

Filed Under: Too much is never enough Tagged With: , , ,

“Mirror Sonnet: How to Rise from the Dead”

April 19, 2013 By

Intense; nice hit of form-follows-function; reminds me of the Mountain Goats.

Filed Under: Art, Mackerel-Snapping Tagged With: , ,

“The Loneliness of the Addict Activist”: Maia Szalavitz

March 25, 2013 By

at The Fix: It’s hard to convey the sense of crisis felt by people using IV drugs and facing AIDS in the early ‘90s: In New York, at least half of needle users were already infected—at least 100,000 people—and there was no treatment, let alone cure or vaccine, in sight. The presence of death was [...]

Filed Under: Too much is never enough Tagged With: , , , , ,

I review “Amour”

January 15, 2013 By

at AmCon. Spoilers.

Filed Under: Art Tagged With: , , ,

“The Death-Haunted Art of Friendship, Part IV”

November 22, 2012 By

Me on friendship and addiction, at Catholic Lane.

Filed Under: Art, Too much is never enough Tagged With: , , , , ,

From today’s readings

November 2, 2012 By

for All Souls Day: The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead; and their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us, utter destruction. But they are in peace. For if [...]

Filed Under: Mackerel-Snapping Tagged With: , , , ,

Memento mori

October 22, 2012 By

Yeah.

Filed Under: Art, Mackerel-Snapping Tagged With: , ,

“St. Francis Borgia and the Dying Impenitent”

October 10, 2012 By

Got that in with forty minutes left in his feast day! Looks awful at this size though, sorry. Anyway this is Goya and yes, the subject was one of the Borgias. Every family’s got its embarrassing relative….

Filed Under: Art, Mackerel-Snapping Tagged With: , , , ,

From”Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die; Cherish, Perish: A Novel by David Rakoff”

August 23, 2012 By

It was sadness that gripped him far more than the fear that, if facing the truth, he had maybe a year. When poetic phrases like “eyes, look your last” become true, all you want is to stay, to hold fast. A new, fierce attachment to all of this world now pierced him. It stabbed like [...]

Filed Under: Art Tagged With: , ,