Books
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The faults of character which sometimes created people's difficulties were far less repellent to Caryll than those faults which make for success in this world. –from Maisie Ward's biography of Carryl Houselander I feel exactly the same way. Yet I have to consider whether there is a bit of envy in it.
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I've been even more busy and distracted than usual for the past few weeks, and should have mentioned this before. At All Manner of Thing, Craig Burrell has been having a Chesterton festival in honor of the anniversary of the great man's death. There's a lot of good stuff there, including substantial reviews of a couple of…
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…I suddenly thought how there comes a time in one's religious experience when nothing can be added to, or subtracted from, what one understands as "belief." There it is, I tell myself, my 'belief,' minuscule though it may be in some eyes, it is oceanic in mine. —Ronald Blythe, Out of the Valley I'm not…
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Reading at the Grand Babylon I had intended to include this in last week’s journal, but had already gone on too long. So, picking up from there: I took two books to the conference with me, and had made a pact with myself not to turn on the television. I have made and broken such…
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She turned uphill , her head thrust forward on her heavy neck, like an irresistible force searching for an immovable object. –from The Ivory Grin (1952)
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It’s only when we try not to experience our special suffering that it can really break us. —Carryl Houselander, from Maisie Ward’s biography of her
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Part of my routine when I arrive at work every morning involves downloading some data from the web site of a company we work with. They always have a quotation on the login page, and they change it every day. Sometimes it's humorous, more often it's vaguely inspirational in a pop-psychology self-help you-can-do-it sort of…
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Fifty Shades of Grey This is depressing: it seems that there is a pornographic novel called Fifty Shades of Grey which is extremely popular among women, and that its plot involves a young woman who gives herself as a masochistic sex slave to a billionaire. Here is one of several commentaries on it which I’ve…
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This is probably not a good time to be asking this question, with some people offline for Lent, and Palm Sunday and Holy Week coming up, but while I'm thinking about it: I've never read Kierkegaard, and I think the time has come for me to give him a try. Would anyone like to suggest…
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She could never be a saint, but she thought she could be a martyr if they killed her quick. –Flannery O'Connor
Light On Dark Water 