Which Craftsmen do You Study?
Billy Collins writes poetry that should be read every day. His imagination and the way he shapes what he finds in it make his work special. In “2128,” he’s imagining the 200th birthday of a man named Donald Hall: ……
Go Ahead, Be Fresh
“I am not a cruise director” is one of the statements I used to make to my children more often than I would have liked, but certainly not on a regular basis. It was my almost reflexive response when one…
Scatter the Seed and Go On with Your Life; I Mean it
Plant a tree for me, said someone I know—as we know people these days.The notion caught my attention.What a lovely thought, I said tothe space in my mind that receivesand holds onto all the wordscreated by the space in my…
An Important Message
Do Any of Us Really Know What We are Doing?
Paleo Principles by Sarah Ballantyne is an enormous tome, and I generally set a box of poker chips atop the pages of one side to hold it open so I can read while I eat breakfast. Bridget purchased the book…
Who Am I Protecting?
Blogging is a strange pastime. I often wonder why I still try to pursue it. Recent interactions with people have convinced me, more than ever, that keeping things under my hat makes for more peaceful relationships, so why would I…
Bamboozled
The word “corruption” jumped out from the pages I read today in Couturier’s Sacred Art, and I jotted a quick note: “Corruption: you can’t go home again, and you can’t start over as if the past never happened.” I guess…
The Awful Futility of Explaining
In Marcel Billot’s foreword to Sacred Art by M.A. Couturier, he explains that L’Art Sacré was a review run for a time by two Dominican priests, Father Couturier and Father Pie-Raymond Régamey. They managed, apparently, to work together and produce…
Trust Issues
Domenique de Menil writes, in her foreword to Sacred Art, a collection of essays and reflections by M.A. Courturier, O.P. : “For Père Couturier, to be sure, straightforwardness, which begets clarity, was the simple and immediate principle of his personal…
New Narratives
It has arrived: the first day of 2022. Why have I looked forward to it with such longing? Is it simply the notion of starting fresh, cleaning out the old and tired and worn? Is it that 2021 was a…
A Madeleine Day
Will I ever retire Walking on Water: just leave it alone or give it away? I doubt it. It continues to speak to me, even though I would never think to include L’Engle in a list of my favorite writers.…
Time for Hope
Jesus has redeemed the time. I’d not understood this until recently. I thought that we (each of us Christians) were called to redeem the time. Where did I come up with such a notion? Well, here and there, from this…
