To glory in adversity is not hard for the man who loves, for this is to glory in the cross of the Lord.—The Imitation of Christ; and in related news…. Read more

KITCHEN ADVENTURE: NOW I WORK AT THE PIZZA PIZZA. I made pizza-on-a-pita for brunch. It was not the most delicious thing I’ve ever cooked, but with good ingredients it’s a super-easy meal. I covered a baking tray with parchment paper and flopped a pita down on it. I thickly sliced some canned whole tomatoes, and sliced some mozzarella, and those went onto the pita. Then a bit of salt (if you put the salt in your hand and sift it... Read more

If in the beginning of your religious life, you live within your cell and keep to it, it will soon become a special friend and a very great comfort.—The Imitation of Christ Read more

“WHAT LIFE ASKS OF US“: Possibly the only David Brooks column I’ve ever liked! Read more

Often we do not know what we can stand, but temptation shows us what we are.—The Imitation of Christ Read more

LAUGHING ALONG TO YOUR BLAH, BLAH, BLAH: If you don’t care about whether there are secular arguments for things… you can skip to an exegesis of B-52s videos; family as politics; and a terrific quote from Jerry Lee Lewis, by which I mean Elvis. Read more

THE MOST IMPORTANT WORD IN THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE IS “CREATED”: So Upturned Earth picked up my “no such thing as a secular reason” post, which is good… because that was a ridiculously sloppy post, and I knew it at the time, and I’m grateful for the nudge to clarify and maybe push the conversation forward. Or, at least, be sloppy in different ways. This is a post whose structure owes too much to Rube Goldberg. I’m going to try... Read more

EDUCATION IN REVERSE: If you were in high school when I was in high school (i.e. exactly in between these two videos), it’s really weird to compare the Golden Age, Sunrise on Pluto retro-futurism of this 1982 B-52s video with its dystopian/utopian retro-retro-futurist 2007 successor. I really like both of them, but the similar tropes and production values make the mood dissonance impossible to ignore. Read more

AND IF I BUILT THIS FORTRESS AROUND YOUR HEARTH: Helen Rittelmeyer turns her politics-as-tribalism shtik, with which I usually disagree (maybe just because I’m too busy trying to build my own tribe from materials I find at home?), into a series of terrific insights, of which this I can imagine a world in which fatherhood (or motherhood) is simply a matter of love and tenderness, but do we really want to relieve parents of the burden of leadership? is the... Read more

After we had been playing and jamming for three or four hours, I said, “Elvis, I want to ask you one thing before we leave. This is on my mind, and I’d just like to know. If you died, do you think you’d go to heaven or hell?” And his eyes got real big, and he looked at me, and he said, “Jerry Lee, don’t you ever ask me that again.”—Jerry Lee Lewis Read more