Last week in my series of posts on Lumen Fidei I focussed on paragraph 13, which describes the labyrinth of idolatry we fall into when we lack faith in Christ. We follow this thing for a little and then that thing, and we get nowhere. The solution was to let the light of faith in, and follow Christ: not to wander aimlessly, but to journey in a particular direction, toward a particular goal. But what does that journey look like?... Read more
This review was first posted in May of 2004. The Complete Peanuts 1950-1952 (Vol. 1) (The Complete Peanuts), by Charles M. Schulz, is the first of a series of books to be published over the next twelve years, containing the complete run of Peanuts cartoons from October of 1952 until Schulz’s retirement, a span of nearly fifty years. I bought it for two reasons. The first is purely nostalgic. During most of my life, the only Peanuts cartoons I read... Read more
I’ve been enjoying a Scottish group called Old Blind Dogs recently; my favorite by them, “Tramps and Hawkers”, isn’t on YouTube, though you can find it on iTunes or Pandora. But another with a similar feel is this one: “Come All Ye Kincardine Lads”. I love the tone of the singer’s voice, and the cheerful good nature of the whole thing. Read more
And summer isn’t a time. It’s a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter. — Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay Read more
So I didn’t get any fiction written last week; Jane got the flu, and then I spent Saturday (prime fiction-writing time) at the Religious Education Congress in Anaheim, which is the big yearly archdiocesan shindig here in Los Angeles. “Congress,” as it is familiarly known, has a certain reputation for heterodoxy in the wider Catholic community, as indicated by a number of tweets I saw last Friday; but I’m pleased to say that the only Catholic heterodoxy I encountered personally... Read more
Busman’s Honeymoon is the last of Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, and it’s an odd book. In fact, it’s three books in one, each with a distinctly different tone. The first book is an extended epistolary novel concerning Lord Peter’s nuptials with Harriet Vane, in which we get to hear from everyone involved (and many who are not), from Lord Peter’s delightful mother, the Dowager Duchess of Denver, to Lord Peter’s egregious sister-in-law, the current Duchess of Denver; it’s... Read more
Apropos of nothing, here’s a picture of a rhinoceros I found while looking for something else. ____ photo credit: Thomas Hawk via photopin cc Read more
Alex Symczak has been visiting my comboxes lately, asking pointed questions about the nature of belief, and questioning my basis for the beliefs I’ve been talking about. And because he’s been civil, and seems to genuinely want to enter into discussion, rather than simply sneering and counting coup like some atheist commenters I’ve had over the years, I’m inclined to address them. At the end of Monday’s post on “What We Can Know, and How We Can Know It” I... Read more
Continuing with my journey through Lumen Fidei, I come to paragraph 13. Here Pope Francis points out that the opposite of faith is idolatry. Faith is trust in God before all created things; and idolatry is precisely faith in some created thing (whether it is a physical idol of stone or wood, or an idea minted in my own head) rather than faith in God. In that sense, whenever I turn to some created thing and give it more importance... Read more
Back in May of 2004 I heard of a Wodehouse/Lovecraft mash-up called Scream For Jeeves, and my mind boggled. And then, a few moments later, the following emerged from mine own fevered brow. I reproduce it here for your delectation. I was in bed, eyeing the morning egg-and-bacon while getting outside of a stiffish brandy-and-soda, when Jeeves shimmered into the room. I don’t know how he does it, and I would never dream of asking. There are things about one’s... Read more
Cry 'Woof'
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