The Christian mystery is incarnational. We profess belief in Jesus, God and man. But profession can teeter, at times, on the edge of a gap between faith and emotional grasp. If we are honest, True God comes more readily to us than True Man. It would be so much easier to have it one way […]
What does it say about us that more states celebrate Black Friday (the shopping day after Thanksgiving) than Lincoln’s birthday? Or that in eighteen states, Black Friday is a paid holiday for government employees, often in lieu of Columbus Day? You know yourself what it says. That spares me any need to struggle to […]
Today is Shrove Tuesday. Last day of the ancient carnival season and herald of Lent, it has dwindled down to a New Orleans’ Mardi Gras, Fasching in Munich, and not much of anything elsewhere. Does Mardi Gras have a purpose anymore besides showing off your bottom and getting drunk on Bourbon Street? Letting go—as the […]
Cum grano salis. With a grain of salt. The phrase has kept me company for years. Within days of leaving our Brooklyn brownstone for this house outside the city, I painted it over the door that leads from the kitchen down to the boiler room. It was up on the lintel before I even hung […]
In an earlier post I registered dismay at the sight of the annual Christmas wreath hanging from the foot of the crucifix in my local parish church. A careful reader familiar with the lore of holly wrote to ask: Would I still object to the placement of the wreath if it were made of holly? […]
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