So I got up this morning, and looked at iBreviary and realized that today is the memorial of St. Paul Miki and his companions, and I thought, “I wish I had time to write about this before I head off to work.” I really need to start looking ahead in the liturgical calendar. But then I noticed that Julie had taken care of the matter for me, so I don’t need to. However, expect to see a post about Takashi... Read more
The next installment in my series about Dominican spirituality is now up at CatholicMom.com. Money quote: For this audience, preaching has to flow from the depths of your being—precisely because you don’t have time to prepare but have to speak in the moment. And this is why prayer and study are so important. It is through contemplation that the things of God sink in, and are there when you need them. Read more
IT WAS ON THE Friday of the week in which all these stirring incidents occurred that Pym’s Publicity, Ltd. became convulsed by the Great Nutrax Row, which shook the whole office from the highest to the lowest, turned the peaceful premises into an armed camp and very nearly ruined the Staff Cricket Match against Brotherhood’s, Ltd. — Dorothy L. Sayers, Murder Must Advertise Horrors! Not the Staff Cricket Match! Something about this passage just makes me happy. Read more
Today, Joseph Susanka posted multiple versions of a song I’ve been enjoying quite a bit recently: “The Sick Note“. I’m familiar with the Dubliners’ version, but there are quite a few others. I’d most likely have posted about it myself eventually, but now that Joseph has done it, I don’t have to. Go give it a listen! Read more
Magnus Albert is the name given to the mother house of the Albertine Order on S’Mary’s World, also known as St. Mary’s-without-the-Arm. To the Albertines the first colonists gave the task of preserving the Archives, the collected library of the colony ship Our Lady of Loreto, and disseminating its contents to the colonists as and when and in such measure as the colony was ready to make use of them. To this end Magnus Albert was built into the side... Read more
Unlike the last couple of Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey novels, about which I had mixed feelings, I returned to Murder Must Advertise with no qualms and great anticipation of pleasure—and I was not disappointed. As the tale begins, a man named Death Bredon takes a job as a copywriter at an advertising agency called Pym’s Publicity. We, of course, recognize him immediately: Lord Peter’s full name is Peter Death Bredon Wimsey. An employee of the firm has died, falling down... Read more
This post is an attempt to capture something I’ve been pondering for awhile; we’ll see how it works out. The diagram to the right is a picture of my (or any person’s) position relative to God at any given moment. God is at the center, and I am not. No matter where I am in my journey, I always have a straight shot to God. If I will only turn towards Him, there he is. It looks a bit like... Read more
It’s tempting to think of the interior life as something that takes place entirely within your mind and heart, but as I pointed out a few weeks ago, it ’tain’t so. We are not souls who happen to be stuck in bodies for a while; we are human beings, a composite of body and soul, and whatever we do, we do with our whole beings. There’s always been a tendency within Christianity to forget this, and act as though the... Read more
I have perpetrated a short story; and, in a stunning break with tradition, I’ve made it available on Amazon for the Kindle. It’s called “Island of the Panzer-Schnauzers,” it’s vaguely steampunk, and it’s quite silly. My first readers compared it to P.G. Wodehouse and Keith Laumer, though I confess I was writing under the influence of Lord Peter Wimsey. Feel free to check it out, and to tell all of your friends! Read more
This is an old Dr. Seuss/Lord of the Rings spoof I wrote about ten years ago. I managed to get Frodo and Sam to Rivendell, and then the wellsprings of inspiration dried up. We had no time for adventures We had smoke-rings to tend. It was time for some pipeweed At the door of Bag End. When old Bilbo left town With a bang for a joke, He said we should always Think of him and smoke. “Somebody, SOMEBODY Has... Read more
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