Man is not just a logical and eucharistic animal, but he is also a creative animal: the fact that man is in God’s image means that man is a creator after the image of God the Creator. …It is likewise significant that, when at the Eucharist we offer back to God the firstfruits of the earth, we offer them not in their original form but reshaped by the hand of man: we bring to the altar not sheaves of wheat... Read more
Craving is “the one condition all addicts agree is their worst enemy,” Lewis said. “This is one place where science and subjectivity have to come together. Scientists need to focus on this, because addicts are completely unanimous about it. This is the enemy. It’s not physical withdrawal symptoms, it’s not relief. It is craving.” Buddhism teaches that “craving is the fundamental engine of personality development,” Lewis said. “It’s what keeps us going around and around.” But if you don’t much... Read more
and other glorious fake book titles from Anthony Powell’s Dance to the Music of Time! My own favorites in this genre are Florence King’s gay Southern masterwork, Time Is a Lost Flute, and of course Agatha Christie’s avant-garde play, They Walked Without Feet. Read more
…Even aside from the sad fact that Catholics have often used the Church’s teaching as an excuse for cruelty and prejudice, there are many problems. Why is it that we only ever hear homilies about two lifelong vocations, marriage and the priesthood? Why are gay men and women so often spoken about as political opponents rather than people? Why do some orthodox Catholics still scoff at the idea of homophobia and acts like anti-gay bullying is nothing to worry about?... Read more
it’s CanCon for AmCon!: I saved The Friends of Meager Fortune, the second novel I’ve read by Canadian Catholic author David Adams Richards, for the polar vortex. If anything can make Boston in January seem warm, it’s this relentlessly grim tale of the last days of man-and-horse lumbering, with horses crashing through the ice and bloodied hands freezing on the reins. I’m conflicted about recommending the book. What is good in it is immensely powerful. The story of the doomed... Read more
Consciously and with deliberate purpose, he can do two things that animals can only do unconsciously and instinctively. First, man is able to bless and praise God for the world. Man is best defined not as a “logical” but as a “eucharistic” animal. He does not merely live in the world, think about it and use it, but he is capable of seeing the world as God’s gift, as a sacrament of God’s presence and a means of communion with... Read more
A series of points too small for a real post. * While I was in Boston for the US National Figure Skating Championships (of which more later!! THEY WERE SO GREAT) I also got to go with Ratty to the Museum of Fine Arts. It has some terrific Spanish painting from the Counter-Reformation era–I love this stuff, even in the court paintings you feel like you can smell the blood. The only thing that glows is the flesh of the... Read more
The circle of divine love, however, has not remained closed. God’s love is, in the literal sense of the word, “ecstatic”–a love that causes God to go out from himself and to create things other than himself. I’m still looking for a cute tag a la “mackerel-snapping” for Orthodox Christian stuff. Your suggestions welcome! Read more
“Reflections on the experience of a celibate, LGBT, Christian couple.” Read more
in the Weekly Standard: When we speak of “the permanent things,” we should mean the enduring, inescapable, and unfulfilled longings of the contradictory human heart: the helpless yearnings found across radically different times and cultures. And among these permanent desires, the need for home and the need for ecstasy stand preeminent. Donna Tartt made her name with 1992’s bestselling murder-by-paganism tale The Secret History, which explored our longing for ecstatic release from the self. The Little Friend (2002) received less... Read more
Eve Tushnet
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