While outraged families are right to cut off Disney from their children’s imaginative formation, they should have been doing this a long time ago. The now-blatant sexual agenda of the corporation is only the final manifestation of a distorted and perverse view of reality that has pervaded the “Disney” brand for a long time. The [...]
The reliance on religion, family, and tradition in Middle Eastern culture reveals the ephemeral, individualistic entertainment culture of the United States for the Vanity Fair that it is. Being on sabbatical in Jerusalem for two months has brought about two important perspectives shedding light on Middle Eastern culture and therefore on the culture in the [...]
In hearing the Bible read, the Word takes flesh before us and changes the souls of those who hear it. David Suchet’s delivery in his audiobook version combines force and gentleness. Never do you sense that he is simply doing a celebrity gig, or offering the Bible as a literary monument; he truly believes in [...]
Understanding Beauty as Percy Bysshe Shelley does—as a principle, like Truth or Justice—should lie at the heart of any rigorously-developed classical curriculum that aims to inspire a new generation of poets, scientists, artists, and genuinely creative citizens. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty”—perhaps one of his greatest works—is a wonderfully Platonic exploration of the [...]
American mythologist Joseph Campbell’s discernment of the hero’s quest and his distillation of world myth into an easily-digestible template has had a powerful impact on contemporary culture, including influencing George Lucas' "Star Wars" films. The mythologist Joseph Campbell was the grandson of an Irish peasant-immigrant. Brought up in a Catholic home in New York, he [...]
"The Chosen" addresses and transfigures the duality we love in our popular mythology: a man who is also God. Repeatedly, it raises questions about how we imagine the humanity of Jesus. What was it like when Peter and Andrew pulled in that massive haul of fish after catching nothing all night? How do you picture [...]
There is a real sense of the elven magic and Arthurian romance in John William Waterhouse’s painting, "The Lady of Shallot," which unites it aesthetically with Tennyson’s poem. It is other-worldly, suggestive of other-worlds beyond the merely mundane. It takes us out of ourselves to a realm beyond the confines of the ego. Such is [...]
Shche ne vmerla Ukrainy i slava, i volia" ('Glory and Freedom of Ukraine has not yet Perished'), also known by its official title of "State Anthem of Ukraine" or by its shortened form "Shche ne vmerla Ukrainy," is the national anthem of Ukraine. It is one of the state symbols of the country. The lyrics [...]
Ash Wednesday Receive this cross of ash upon your brow, Brought from the burning of Palm Sunday’s cross. The forests of the world are burning now And you make late repentance for the loss. But all the trees of God would clap their hands The very stones themselves would shout and sing If you could [...]
Franz Joseph Haydn composed the Mass in Time of War, his tenth setting of the Roman Catholic Mass in 1796, in the city of Eisenstadt, Austria, where he was the composer-in-residence-for Prince Esterhazy. At the time of its writing in August and its premier in December, French Revolutionary were winning victories in Italy and Germany [...]
It is not fair or accurate to describe the struggle between the two warring parties in Ukraine as religious, except in the decidedly irreligious sense of its being a sectarian struggle in which religious affiliation is little more than a badge worn in the service of tribalism. A couple of nights ago, I found myself [...]
Customs and outward forms signal that one’s duty is greater than one’s self, and neglect of them is an exercise in egotism. Accounts vary, and a few say that the story about our civil Founders is apocryphal, but it would seem that the story is true. As one of the more jovial national patriarchs, Gouverneur Morris, [...]
Léo Delibes’ “Flower Duet” is utterly transporting. It’s so pure, the only thing you can compare it to is the finest of champagnes, the way the first sip makes you feel. What is so irresistible about Delibes’ music is his ability to apply colorful orchestration, harmonic dexterity, delicious rhythms, in a fully fleshed-out symphonic sound [...]
Music’s purity and detachment from other fields of activity means that it is has a purifying effect on the soul. It frees us from captivity to the world of things and from history, ideology, and politics, and raises us to an experience of pure emotional and spiritual states. Music is often claimed to be—and valued [...]