Only he could see them clearly: the wayThey curl their shadows close beneath their leaves, Cupping clefts of glacial cold—how they grow Out of the dead parts of themselves, new stalks To... The…
First Things ↗The sentimental images painted of proud, tight-knit communities slowly crumbling away are compelling, but I have to question if this shift is as bad as D. P. Curtin... The post…
First Things ↗The myth of Narcissus tells of a beautiful young man’s obsession with his own image, captured in a reflecting pool. He scorns all others, so entranced... The post Idle Hands…
First Things ↗Something of a shift in the landscape is signaled when a press like Polity releases, almost simultaneously, two book-length critical engagements... The post Prodigal Child appeared first on First Things.
First Things ↗What if Flannery O’Connor had been forced to live through Australia’s COVID-19 lockdowns and its surrounding political and ecclesiastic paradoxes? A bizarre concept, and yet that’s... The post Briefly Noted…
First Things ↗For years I have aspired to read Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour trilogy. But bound together the three novels (Men at Arms, Officers and Gentlemen, and The End of... The…
First Things ↗I wait for themthis dark spun dawn,kinglet, titmouse, nuthatch, wren,names so sweet on winter’s frozen tongue,such feathered dancingin this hard-edged timedelights the eye, and, yes, the heart;where shadows silenceshattered... The…
First Things ↗In the twentieth century the messengers shot themselves. Most did so metaphorically, of course, though a few machos—Ernest Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson come to mind—did literally blow their... The…
First Things ↗I wish someone had told me ten years ago that time would be the thing most needed for the rhythms of the church calendar to “get into my bones”, and…
Mere Orthodoxy ↗It’s a truism that American trust in institutions is at a low ebb. As we look at the institutions that serve us, we tell stories of scandal, corruption, cover-up, overreach,…
Mere Orthodoxy ↗