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It seems a universal propensity of the human mind to imagine that at some time in the past or future there was or will be a paradise. Whether or not one is justified, as C.S. Lewis and others have suggested, in drawing religious conclusions from this fact, it does seem to be a fact. Our…
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This piece originally appeared in the inaugural issue of Caelum et Terra. — I walked into Wal-Mart the other day and one of the first things I saw was a big cardboard crate full of Keebler cookies being sold at some special low price. On the side of the crate, in big letters, were the…
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Who Owns America? Herbert Agar and Allen Tate, editors. Contributors: David Cushman Doyle, Lyle H. Lanier, John C. Rawe, Frank Lawrence Owsley, Richard B. Ransom, Allen Tate, Herbert Agar, Donald Davidson, James Muir Waller, George Marion O’Donnell, John Crowe Ransom, Douglas Jerrold, Willis Fisher, Andrew Lytle, John Donald Wade, Robert Penn Warren, T.J. Cauley, Henry…
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NOTE: This essay appeared in the Summer 1996 issue of Caelum et Terra, a magazine, no longer published, in which I had a hand. References to then-current events and conditions in my own life and that of my family are now some years out of date. I have not read The Lord of the Rings…
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NOTE: This piece originally appeared in the National Catholic Register in 1982. Once I saw Santa Claus. Not some bogus fellow in the mall, but the real thing, in the sky: sleigh, reindeer, and all. It was Christmas Eve and I was about four years old. An aunt of mine was out in the backyard,…
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In spring-fed Beaver Dam Creek, which borders the family property in Greenbrier, Alabama, there lives a teensy little fish called the Spring Pygmy Sunfish, which is on the endangered species list. Going back to the late '70s, there's been some controversy about development in this area because of this fish. My niece, Emily, is a…
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NOTE: This essay appeared originally in Caelum et Terra. —July 14, 2005 Nothing At the CenterNine Popes Without a GodThe Menace of Nice PeopleFalling Leaves in Late WinterPolitics and Communion Nothing At the Center [top] [next] Remote, lofty, and vast, the inside surface of a dome is a natural spot for the placement of…
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This piece was published almost twenty years ago, in the Winter/Spring 1985 issue of The Hillsdale Review (under the title “True Blues: Rock, Jazz, and Conservatism”). I dug it out a few months ago after an intermittent discussion with Jesse Canterbury about rock and jazz in which we discussed among other things the different criteria…
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(Note: this review appeared in the National Catholic Register, some years ago—around 1982, I think. I found, on re-reading it, that I had identified the character to whom the title refers. In the interests of not giving away too much of the story to first-time readers of the novel, I’ve removed that name; otherwise the…
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Contradiction experienced to the very depth of one’s being tears us heart and soul: it is the cross. —Simone Weil
Light On Dark Water 