— 1 — I’m really pleased to announce to all of you, that tomorrow, I begin my new weekly radio show with Real Life Radio. My program is an hour long, and is called “Fights In Good Faith” And the header image makes excellent use of one of the shots Sydney Angel took when I did the headshots for my book: The show will stream on Saturdays at 5pm and repeat on Sunday at 1pm (plus the shows will be archived). And,... Read more
I’ve been seeing a fair amount in my feeds (both RSS and social media) about the Perils Of Flirting, and how to navigate them of late. Everything from a married friend mentioning that she gives positive feedback to the people who flirt with her well without noticing her ring, because she wants to encourage positive public flirting to a lot of internet discussion of the professor who shared how his anxiety about having any appropriate way to approach women drove him to (a)... Read more
I picked up Robert Farrar Capon’s Bed and Board: Plain Talk About Marriage after reading Melanie’s post on The Wine Dark Sea on “What has Beatrice to do with Bed?” The quotes she assembled were easily enough to get me to order the book for myself. And I suspect they’re a little more generally appealing than the quote I want to highlight from my reading, so perhaps you want to pop over chez elle first? I really liked Capon’s book, and, if I’m ever lucky... Read more
I’ve run into three considerations of hypotheticals (two of them in the last week) that all seem to fall into a pattern. First up. there’s this dialogue, related to me by a friend who teaches a second grade catechism class. (They were discussing how the disciples of Christ spread the gospel). Teacher: If you had to spread a message today, how would you do it? Second Grader: I’d capture a mountain lion and tame him and ride him so fast.... Read more
Today marks the start of the On Christian Doctrine Augustine bookclub, so, if any of you are interested in joining, you’ve actually only got three paragraphs from the preface to read today in order to get all caught up with the rest of us. And one of those three grafs goes like this: To those who do not understand what is here set down, my answer is, that I am not to be blamed for their want of understanding. It is... Read more
Last week I joined Mark Shea on his radio show to chat about my conversion, and my forthcoming book on prayer, including what I described as “probably a non-heretical approach to lectio divina,” which was originally inspired by the advice my vocal teacher gave me when I kept messing up Sondheim’s “Good Thing Going.” She’d tell me, “You’re singing the note you want to sing, and Sondheim’s going to give it to you, but not yet.” You can hear us talk... Read more
It turns out that Goodreads has a nifty feature that plots the publication date of books you read against when you read them. (I think it gets confused by second editions and reissues, though). It was fun to see my year’s (well, half-year’s — I started using Goodreads this summer) reading plotted out in this way. Turns out the top ten oldest things I read were: Loss and Gain: Story of a Convert – John Henry Newman (1848) [reread] Dracula... Read more
— 1 — I’m sure I’ll write something longer later, but I just want to give you all the heads up that I really enjoyed the Into the Woods movie. It’s like a lot of book-to-movie adaptations, where there are nuances and characterizations that are flattened or telescoped for film, but you still really enjoy seeing the story you love in a new medium, finding a new audience. Both times I went (once on Christmas, once a week after) the theater sold... Read more
Leigh Bardugo, author of the Grisha Trilogy (and cause of my Halloween costume) is running a series of creativity sprints, starting at noon today. The goal is to “Begin as You Mean to Go On” in the new year (she has a FAQ here). This doesn’t necessarily mean, if you plan to clean your garage this year, that you’ll go out and clean the whole thing, or even spend two hours on it, to really make a good start today. Even spending five... Read more
My family often celebrates New Year’s Eve by watching a very long movie (i.e. Gandhi) on New Year’s Eve, when we’re committed to staying up to finish it. If you’d like to pick up that tradition but in a literary vein, why not welcome in the new year while reading Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia. I read it this month because all my cool friends were reading/had read it, and I’m very pleased to have... Read more
Unequally Yoked
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In