David Russell Mosley Lent 27 March 2017 The Edge of Elfland Hudson, New Hampshire Dear Readers, This weekend was rough. I was exhausted for innumerable reasons. And this led to me being overly short with my children. To be fair, they’ve been a little much over the past few days. Lots of running, disobedience, shouting, screaming, crying; and then there’s how the kids were behaving. I was just done. It got particularly bad on Sunday. I actually broke down and... Read more
David Russell Mosley Lent 22 March 2017 The Edge of Elfland Hudson, New Hampshire Dear Readers, Here I was sitting in a coffeeshop (one of those chains I am no particular fan of, but it was on the way of the many errands we had to run today). I was reading Michael Martin’s excellent new book The Incarnation of the Poetic Word. When all of a sudden I was transported to a different world. How can I describe it? Have... Read more
David Russell Mosley Lent 18 March 2017 The Edge of Elfland Hudson, New Hampshire Dear Readers, Well, yesterday was St. Patrick’s day and many have written excellently about the man and his feast day and why it shouldn’t exclusively include drinking and green and leprechauns. Today I want to talk about a prayer that is often associated with St. Patrick but was probably not written by him. I’m talking of course about “The Breastplate,” often also called “The Lorica” or... Read more
David Russell Mosley Ordinary Time 15 March 2017 The Edge of Elfland Hudson, New Hampshire Dear Readers, I know this is far later than usual, but I wanted to write you a very quick letter. As you know, over the last month I’ve been telling you about Michael Martin and his Sophia Option. Well, in the video below you get to briefly see Martin discuss it. Two of the standouts for me in this video are Martin’s reference to the... Read more
David Russell Mosley Ordinary Time 14 March 2017 The Edge of Elfland Hudson, New Hampshire Dear Readers, About a month ago over at the Lepanto Institute Facebook page, a meme was posted. You can see it here. It pictures an almost offensively stereotypically Jewish Judas kissing a rather European looking Jesus. At the top in ominous, red letters it says, Judas Iscariot; at the bottom (oddly in white), Patron Saint of Social Justice. Scot Eric Alt and Mary Pezzulo adequately explained... Read more
David Russell Mosley Ordinary Time 8 March 2017 The Edge of Elfland Hudson, New Hampshire Dear Readers, Today I had intended to write about Michael Martin’s The Sophia Option II: A Joyful Noise, but then this morning he went and posted The Sophia Option III: Taking it Back. So, I will respond to both essays (Michael assures me he’s done for now on these). In these two essays Martin continues to note his dissatisfaction with Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option. In... Read more
David Russell Mosley Ordinary Time 6 March 2017 The Edge of Elfland Hudson, New Hampshire Dear Readers, As I was reading Michael Ward’s excellent and convincing Planet Narnia (which argues that the seven Chronicles of Narnia were written with a particular governing planet in mind) I came to his chapter on Saturn and The Last Battle. Lewis describes Saturn this way in The Discarded Image: In the earth his influence produces lead; in men the melancholy complexion; in history, disastrous... Read more
David Russell Mosley Ordinary Time 2 March 2017 The Edge of Elfland Hudson, New Hampshire Dear Readers, I just wanted to make a quick announcement: My novel, On the Edges of Elfland: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups, is now available on Kindle. It costs only $10, so if you’re an ebook person and can or do use Kindles (or their apps on other tablets), you can now get an ebook copy of my book. But don’t forget you can always... Read more
David Russell Mosley Ordinary Time 2 March 2017 The Edge of Elfland Hudson, New Hampshire Dear Readers, I want to talk to you about Joy. It has been an obsession of mine of late. I began to notice its influence on me most at the tail end of the last liturgical year and the start of this one. I began to describe myself as one formed by and for Joy. I began to realize that, at my core, I am... Read more
David Russell Mosley Ordinary Time 27 February 2017 The Edge of Elfland Hudson, New Hampshire Dear Readers, While we have now had a couple of days of sunshine, the other day was cloudy and rainy. Days like this, especially when I can smell the water in the air, I’m transported somewhere else entirely. I am reminded of something I have only rarely experienced: the ocean. And from the ocean, I am transported to Atlantis Towards the end of Tolkien’s The... Read more
Letters from the Edge of Elfland
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