A good teacher begins class with a great question, one that makes us think and consider a new perspective: what if we are distracting ourselves to tedium? That is how I read Alan Noble, professor and prophet, in his fine new book Disruptive Witness: Speaking the Truth in a Distracted Age. We were once asked if we are amusing ourselves to death. Actually, most of the distractions we cultivate are not that amusing. Our phones buzz, but there is not... Read more
I am very nearsighted, but nobody noticed for a bit. Obviously I could not tell my vision was bad as I had nothing with which to compare it! My vision was just fine, I was getting along, even in first-grade. Mom and my teacher noticed, however, I was holding my books very close in order to read. Sometimes by guesses about what was on the board at the front of the room were wrong. My parents got me glasses. I recall... Read more
I love all my children, living and dead. Each day I pray for one of them and for my son-in-law, but when I pray for Edmund Saint John Reynolds, the prayer is different. He was born into Paradise and I held him just once. He missed the pain of this world, evidently not needing the school of souls that is this life, and so went to God and glory. We will meet, but I miss him. Death is unbeatable, unbribable,... Read more
William Blake, half-mad wholly prophetic, lived in one of the first eras in human history when power was not just in the hands of a tiny ruling class. Shakespeare was at the start of the process that ended the (relative) powerlessness of the middle class, Shakespeare’s pen gave him power. Blake saw some bad fruit of middle class power moves: dark Satanic mills. Shakespeare warned his audience, historically used to the innocence of relative powerlessness, that the urban was much... Read more
Her legacy is a country and her message is the Cross: Blessed Nina (or Nino) came, she taught, she conquered in the sign of the Holy Cross. She was she . . . And she was equal to the Apostles, never reduced to less than she was or made just what they were. Nina was powerful. She was also historical and yet historically she was so mighty, so miraculous, that legend creeps around her story. People who met her saw... Read more
Mom is wise. Maybe all sons think this is true, yet it is true: Mom is wise. Rarer than being merely wise is mercy: Mom is insightful and merciful. When Daniel and I decided to vulcanize rubber (we read a story about it) this meant melting a lot of sulphur (it should not have) and that produced clouds of rotten-egg smelling yellow gas. She asked: “What are you guys doing?” We told her and she said to let her know how... Read more
Captain Kirk could go to planets, I envy that, but the computing power in my house equals that found on Enterprise. Spock could say he knew all there was to know about computers when faced with a conundrum about the Enptrise machines. I do not know much, but I have a better computer than Spock had on the bridge: My watch takes calls, my phone shows movies, and the machine on which I am typing this weighs less than my... Read more
In-N-Out is coming to the American City of the Twenty-First Century: Houston. One the last reasons to stay in the past, California, is coming to Space City, yet I have mixed feelings. Partly one is sad to see California sacked by Texas yet again: the last few exclusive treasures coming to heart of the Republic. Will Disney build a theme park here next? In-N-Out makes the best cheeseburger I have eaten. As any picture of me at 55 shows, I... Read more
Did Jesus go to Glastonbury? Not for the music festival, but to the Roman Era tin mines. I have a wonderful little pamphlet by the Revd C.C. Dobson, M.A. suggesting “really maybe!” To quote Dobson directly: It is probable that the critic will dissect the whole story thus discovered, and will find the authority or separate portion of it to be weak and insufficient. Probably most will admit, however, that the whole thing hangs together and each portion is a... Read more
William Blake, half mad half damned, wrote beauty that lifted his soul from Hell to God. Picture William Blake, a man who hates his times with all his heart and despises his own limitations. The old order was changing and giving way to a new and what was old was better and the new was corrupt: utterly. Blake went mad considering all this and chose pathways that put his soul in peril, but he kept looking Godward. This may have... Read more
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