Thankful That the Center Held I have seen the end, and in the end, the center holds. Dad was breathing every six seconds or so, Victorian novels had prepared me for the rattle, no book for the sound. Dad, dear old Dad, Daddy, the guy we could ask because he would know, struggled mightily for air. I did not know what to say. I still do not know what to say, but one thing I said caused his eye to... Read more
Whim Wham, our brilliant grand, approached the water reverently. She was holding a can of beans and proceeded to baptize that object and give the Beans a name. From henceforth until the End, the Beans would be: Baby Anna. Baby Anna has now joined Baby Gorn and Pi at tea parties where no real tea is spilled because no real tea is served. We cannot eat plastic donuts served there, but we can pretend to do so. Baby Anna is a... Read more
Unless your mother was the Mother of God, then she will have had her faults. My Mom, grand lady that she is, may also have some faults, but if so piety suggests I not share them here. Why would I? The Church does not teach that she is without sin. Why would I state the obvious? Given her essential decency and comparative excellence to all other moms but one, why would I natter? I suppose it might prove that I... Read more
Of all the vanities, the vanity of vain repetition may be the worst. I have heard it said on very high authority that vain repetition even applies to prayer. Whatever it is, we better not do it. I am no theologian, so I shall not venture to comment on prayer, but a longish life has taught me about another kind of vain repetition: one observable even in so simple an animal soul as our Dog Nessie. Nessie suffers from the... Read more
Beware hidden assumptions in histories. Too often one gets third rate philosophy the historian cannot defend as philosophy. Often this is justified because “this is just the way history works” forgetting that historians have adopted different background philosophical, ethical, or even theological assumptions at different times. If one adopts a Platonist, a Marxist, or any other view of that (to the practitioner) “makes sense of history” or tells him or her how to do history, then their conclusions will only be persuasive to those... Read more
Reality opposed smashes the soul. The credentialed pass the ship as safe, after all, the company has made it safer than the rules say they must, and entire papers can be written on the progress shown in this largest movable object ever built by mankind. “Humanity has conquered nature!” Yet the steel is inferior, the lifeboats too few, and there is an iceberg in the sea. The road to hell, eternal perdition, is signposted, often with footnotes, with words that... Read more
The Reality Deniers Communism in the Soviet Union was dying. The evidence was everywhere, but credentialed minds in official educational institutions could explain impotence as rebirth, bare sentience as brilliance, and official evil as a necessary destruction of eggs to make an omelet. Reality was not fooled and the Soviets fell. Grifters and liars existed, of course, battening on the system in 1988, but it was the sincere, credentialed types, the earnest who had worked their way up through the... Read more
I saw an icon weep. I did. I can use a search engine and so know what the explanations might be, but I poked about, and I do not believe the naturalistic accounts. The icon was weeping, and the tears healed me. I cannot prove that either to a critic’s satisfaction, but I am not sharing this to answer critics. Instead, I am reflecting on the unseen realities of the world as I have experienced them. A friend and I... Read more
Christmas is coming and so we hush in hopeful anticipation. Anticipation right before a big event causes most of us to hold our breath. We wait and stop talking lest our words distract us from what is about to happen. Stillness can be hard for me when something exciting is coming like Christmas. A wise old relative once asked me if I had ever heard of anyone talking themselves to death, because if that were possible, then I might be... Read more
My great-grandfather was once asked: “Brother Reynolds do you think you are right about everything?” He replied: “If I thought I was wrong, I would change my mind.” This was wise. Naturally, he did change his mind sometimes and as a modest man Great-grandfather knew he likely was wrong about more than a few things. However, he knew that eventually a person has to commit himself and then see. After all, his father had gone off to fight for Lincoln... Read more
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