Well now. Heather King, whose book Shirt of Flame awaits on my e-reader, and whose memoir Redeemed I once had the happy occasion to review, has gone and written about abortion – her own. I will be reading it this Lent. Thought I’d mention it here.
Archives for February 2012
“… the real-life version of an orphan boy from some kind of dark fairy tale …”
February 29, 2012 by at 10:51 am
The Millions offers up another perceptive take on Walker Percy’s life and work: Post-40 Bloomers: Walker Percy, The Original Moviegoer
Great Kuestions
February 29, 2012 by at 10:33 am
The mystic asks in light of the Doyle post below, when will our U.S.A.’s balkanization commence?
Surprised?
February 29, 2012 by at 8:31 am
I am not. Check this out by Larry Doyle on Huffington Post Comedy site.
It seemed way over the top, and I was thinking about actually Snopeing this, but dug deeper on HuffPost, and found something like an explanation and claiming satire. I guess he got duffied, and is defiantly asserting his intent. Basically he is explaining the joke rather than apologizing.
This is the explanation here.
(He probably hates Tolkien too.)
(NOTE: Please note the use of our new word in a sentence, “he got duffied”)
Silence 2013
February 28, 2012 by at 8:07 pm
Looking forward to the movie. Already I can imagine the cinematography.
Sign of Contradiction and God’s “silence” are big topics for me. I wish that I had time for a much deeper dive.
Inter: Ference
February 28, 2012 by at 8:59 am
I seem to be running into Ference a lot.
[rimshot!]
BTW: The Franciscan Sister who threw the Boss into the trashcan was Sister Martina, who by the time I attended was principal of St. Rose. And, yes, she was all that. Fearfully wrought and simmering with equal parts love of God and Dies Irae…
The priest who allegedly knocked the Boss down while serving Mass could very well have been Monsignor (then-Father) Thomas Coffey, who retired from active ministry in 1990. I too served under him, a meaty Irish priest with an inscrutible depth of reserve – even for a descendant of Hibernia… It is this which makes me wonder either a) what Mr. Springsteen could have done to warrant arousing the emotions of Msgr. Coffey or b) perhaps it was not Msgr. Coffey at all, but some anonymous assistant pastor.
BTB: Note that DT is under new management and y’all could do worse than subscribe to the magazine if you haven’t already. Lots of good stuff in this issue, which is, as always, a gorgeous gift to the eyes, the ears and the mind…
Also, the new look to the website – what can I say? It’s built for speed…!
Spe
February 28, 2012 by at 8:26 am
Today In Mysticism – Ostrov (The Island) Radical Repentance Edition
February 27, 2012 by at 4:43 am
BALLS!!!
February 26, 2012 by at 7:06 pm
That’s right Balls! Mother’s got’em. Big Ones too. EWTN is suing the federal government. Bernardo inspired this post with his question, “Frankly I only wish I knew what more to do.”
Those who want to resist Mordor can donate to the Becket Fund.
Also EWTN could probably use some support because I am sure whomever from the government inspects media outlets to see if the soap dispensers in their rest rooms are more than half full will find EWTN in violation of quite a few regulations.
Request For JOB
February 26, 2012 by at 4:29 pm
Dude
I have a request to have a word added to the Korrektiv lexicon. Since you are the blog wordsmith, would you please consider crafting one of those fancy-pants dictionary looking words with phonetic pronunciation, weird symbols, and semicolons and all that?
The word is “Duffied”.
Here it is in a sentence.
Cubeland Mystic put the Full Disclosure statement in his Catholic Media post because he didn’t want to get duffied in the comboxes by pissed off Catholics.
I think the definition might be, “A firestorm of angry blog comments touched off by a gross misunderstanding of the contents of the post or the intent of the author, esp applicable when the content or intent is clear. A false controversy.”
Please feel free to “buff-up” the definition, or add secondary or tertiary definitions. Then when it is in the OED, we can both get credit.
Regards
C.M.
Judas?
February 26, 2012 by at 8:39 am
From The Writer’s Almanac:
Playwright Christopher Marlowe (books by this author) was baptized in Canterbury, England, on this date in 1564. The son of a shoemaker, he was so intellectually gifted that he was accepted into Cambridge on a scholarship meant for men entering the clergy. He chose to write plays rather than pursue holy orders, and he was frequently absent, possibly because he was spying for Queen Elizabeth I, an occupation he may have held until the end of his life. He may have been posing as a Catholic to gather intelligence on any plots against the Protestant queen; he was almost denied his diploma because it was rumored he had converted to Roman Catholicism, and he was only granted his degree after the queen’s Privy Council intervened on his behalf.
Marlowe was one of the bad boys of the Renaissance. We don’t know too much about him — even less than we know about Shakespeare, which isn’t much — but his plays reveal an author who was cynical about nearly everything: religion, society, and politics. He was most likely gay and an atheist in a time when it was very dangerous to be either, let alone both. But he was also a brilliant poet and dramatist, breaking away from the traditional dramatic form of rhymed couplets to work in blank verse, and inspiring Shakespeare to do the same. One of the plays he wrote while at Cambridge was Tamburlaine the Great, and it was produced in London in 1587. It did well enough that he wrote a sequel; these were the only of Marlowe’s plays produced before his untimely death at 29, when he was stabbed in a dispute over a tavern bill. Marlowe also wrote Doctor Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward II, and The Massacre at Paris.
Catholic Media
February 26, 2012 by at 8:34 am
Do any of you watch or listen to Catholic media? This would be EWTN, Ave Maria Radio etc. Do you think their content places too much emphasis on the world around us and not enough on developing the life of the spirit?
This HHS thing was totally predictable. Oven-stuffing materialists will always keep the ovens burning. This is not surprising. I am not all freaked out and offended that the administration mandated the violation of our faith. It is a tautological certainty that these folks will violate our faith because we are a sign of contradiction.
The story (i.e. project) that I am writing deals with transformation of souls aligned with the Culture of Death to becoming a sign of contradiction. The reason I mention Catholic Media is because I think about being a sign of contradiction quite a bit, and when I listen to Catholic Media they sound kind of sort of like Fox News. Shouldn’t Catholic Media focus more on building up souls, rather than throwing red meat to the home team?
(Full Disclosure: I will support Catholic media, regardless of their content, until the materialists shut them down, and we are broadcasting our pirate signal from Radio Nebuchadnezzar.)
I memorized a poem!
February 25, 2012 by at 8:50 am
The End of the Twentieth Century
As performed at the Legion of Doom headquarters in Spokane, Wash., February 17, 2012.
Today In Mysticism – Cold Ashes Are Transfigured Edition
February 25, 2012 by at 2:41 am
Prayers By The Lake
by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovic
You pour out light over the darkness, Lord, and colors and shapes emerge. You bend Your face over the abyss, whose name is Nothingness, and the abyss tries to depict the beauty of Your face in shadows. All creation expresses You the way the abyss dreams of You.
My lake is also beautiful while the peaceful face of the sun remains bent over it. And all those who pass by praise the beauty of my lake. But as soon as the sun hides its face, my lake becomes dark and abysmal. And no passerby ever offers any praise for the lake except in the presence of the sun or the sun’s radiant companions.
The face of the abyss intoxicates those who do not see the sun bent over the abyss. The beauty of things begins when an onlooker bends his face over them. There is no mirror if there is no face in front of the mirror. But even a face in front of a mirror means nothing if there is no light.
In the light of Your face I pay no attention to any creature. Without You, creatures and I would not be mirrors of one another, but rather darkness, and an abyss, and an opaque chill.
Creation distorts Your beauty the way a dream distorts reality. Creation torments me just as dreams torment me. For what is creation except dreams of Your inexpressible Reality?
My neighbors say: “We have dreamed beautiful dreams.” The universe is my witness when I tell you that you are more beautiful than your dreams. The universe also dreams, and cannot dream enough about its own beauty. O my sleepy universe: as long as a dream dreams a dream, one dream is afraid of another, even if one dream seeks an interpreter and comforter in another. Who is prophesying to whom: the dream to reality or reality to the dream?
O my beautiful universe: dream of Reality and Reality will tell you everything. Admit the Reality, of which you are a dream, and you will awaken, and will no longer ramble about beauty, but will be Beauty. There is only one Reality and only one Beauty, and it is the reason for your dream.
Do not tell me, children, about the beauty of the stars. If the Lord withdrew Himself from the stars, your mouths would be struck dumb. Stand in the thick darkness by my lake and try to sing to it. Truly you will be struck dumb and remain silent until the sun dawns, until the sun pours its beauty over the lake and gives your speechless throat its voice.
Your face pours beauty over all creation. The universe swims in Your beauty as a boat swims in the sea.
And when You bend over cold ashes, the ashes are transfigured and receive a face.
Bring my heart to its senses, my Lord, so that it may not be captivated by mortal beauty but by You, my Immortal Beauty.
O my only Beauty!
Allow me to see Your Face, just more and more–of Your Face.
Who the hell looks for grace anymore?
Inconcievable!
At any rate, I’ve never seen the other work this duo has done (I will confidentially reserve my mea culpas for a movie which is literally nothing more than two men talking). Is it the case, though, that if you’re big (small?) enough in the business you get away with saying things like this:
Mr. Gregory, who will play the infirm old Brovik, an aging employee of Solness’s [in the play], said that if done correctly, the film could be an intimate meditation on finding grace “just as the clock is about to strike midnight.”
“You realize when you get to my age,” said the 77-year-old Mr. Gregory, “that you hopefully will still do some more work. But the last great creative adventure is dying in a positive way.”
h/t Althouse