Had I to choose a musical summer idyll, my choice would be Jour d’été à la montagne (Summer’s Day in the Mountains), a tone poem by the French Romantic composer Vincent d’Indy. D’Indy (1851–1931) is one of those composers celebrated in their day whose music has since fallen into obscurity (his other “mountain” piece, Symphony [...]
For all intents and purposes, Russell Kirk became Russell Kirk the day he realized that there was no need to fear death. Every once in a while, someone online—being either sincere or sincerely mischievous—loves to ask about the status of unrecognized saints. Who is the person most likely to be saint that the church has [...]
To see and to live is better than to choose; to ride the adventure of faith and hope and love is better than to plot your course to the Fortunate Isles, those illusions. But all things come to them that wait. Into sight silently draws a ship, draped in black silk, with a maiden of [...]
“I never thought it would come to this,” the despondent college professor-turned-Nazi-cooperator cries near the end of the film “Good.” See this movie, which warns of the dangers of the failure to speak up against encroaching evil, but be forewarned that you may see someone you know—or yourself—in the main character. Everyone knows a John [...]
Watanabe Sadao never made art for popes and presidents. He made art for the humble Christian home. His simple style was not an affectation, but a true expression of his Christian faith. Like his father’s hymns, Watanabe’s prints were for living a Christian day, not for achieving artistic glory. Anyone who lived through the last [...]
Music liberates us from vulgarity, intellectual rigidity, and the tyranny of unexamined, popular opinions about music and beauty. Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul. –Plato Music transcends the classroom, the concert stage, and professional recordings. It pervades life. Mankind has long used music in all sorts of ways: [...]
The American community that I, a Chinese national, discovered on Perrin Avenue in Lafayette, Indiana, offers its members a supportive and loving world in which religious and cultural traditions are preserved and shared beliefs venerated. It embodies many meaningful elements indicative of the original form of the community, which are absent in the ersatz ones [...]
Without a deep religious faith, Whittaker Chambers could hardly have made his stand against Communism and, in fact, almost failed to do so. “The one essential condition of human existence is that man should always be able to bow down before something infinitely great.” —Stepan Trofimvovitch, in The Possessed, by Fyodor Dostoevsky Whittaker Chambers’ Witness is the [...]
I found in theology something missing from philosophy as I experienced it—the undergirding of a received and popular body of knowledge found in scripture and religious tradition. Theology is a mansion with many rooms and has something to say to every aspect of the human condition. As “discourse about God,” “reasoning about God,” or “the [...]
Each great teacher locates the fundamental problem of human living differently: The Buddha cites suffering; Socrates points to ignorance; and Jesus identifies faulty love. In addition, all three Masters teach that the task set for each human soul is to travel from illusion to reality. Unlike the Age of Faith, in Postmodernity, or more accurately [...]
The rigorous practice of virtue is often presented as austere and unattractive. Virtuous people do not seem to enjoy life and suppress the desires that make most people happy, appearing as unpolished individuals who abstain from beautiful and delightful things as the manifestations of a corrupt and sinful world. But is this view accurate? Modern [...]
G. K. Chesterton, a truly humble soul, enrapt in gratitude and wonder, was moved to contemplate the deepest meaning of gothic architecture. More than a century later, our own souls find themselves singing in harmony with Chesterton as they hear and contemplate the beauty of his voice, and the beauty of the song he is [...]
For the explosive energy and power of his music, and its exploring of unheard-of worlds of sound, Igor Stravinsky was the main figure in 20th-century music. Many of us are affected by the ethos of his music whether we are aware of it or not. Its confidence, sharpness, clarity, precision, and lack of sentimentality are [...]
We are each so wrapped up in earthly desires that you may miss a sunset cloudbank that no one else in town bothers to notice, which God created just for you and you alone to see today—just to tell you that He is still here and that He loves you. Did you see that bird [...]