Because I feel that, in the Heavens above, The angels, whispering to one another, Can find, among their burning terms of love, None so devotional as that of "Mother," Therefore by that dear name I long have called you— You who are more than mother unto me, And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed [...]
The beauty of fairy tales is their ability to attractively depict character and virtue. Goodness glimmers while wickedness and deception are unmasked. The notion that fairy tales and fantasy stories stimulate and instruct the moral imagination of the young is, of course, not new. The Victorians certainly held to that notion when they brought the [...]
Meindert De Jong’s "The Wheel on the House" is not merely about what we like. It is about what we need. Too often, announcements in our world that “We’re all in this together” are merely announcements from powerful people that they are in charge. De Jong’s beautiful tale is something different. Meindert De Jong [...]
It’s always exciting whenever a missing piece of the puzzle of William Shakespeare’s life comes to light. One such piece was discovered recently in a London archive by Lucy Munro, Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Literature at King’s College London. In doing research on the location of London playhouses, Dr. Munro stumbled upon a [...]
All the King’s Men (1946): It’s as if Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989) wrote this classic American tale principally for college and university students. With a solid foundation in the liberal arts, they will recognize the philosophical and psychological theories that a central character, Jack Burden, has in mind when he transforms them into excuses for [...]
The default position with Shakespeare is to favor bold revisions over the poetic wisdom in the plays themselves. Why not let Shakespeare be what he is? In a recent piece for the New York Times, Drew Lichtenberg, the artistic producer at the Shakespeare Theater Company in Washington, laments the closing of the California Shakespeare Theater [...]
Eric Forsbergh writes with insight, compassion, and humor, as he describes in well-honed vignettes the human condition, anchored in our DNA: love, identity, sex, families, babies, war, and death, as we go about our multifaceted lives, making music, solving crimes, surfing the internet, and coping with aging parents as we face our own mortality. This [...]
Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five: Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year. He said to his friend, — "If the British march By land or sea from the town to-night, Hang a lantern [...]
If a democracy drifts into unlimited notions of freedom, the best course of action is not to strip citizens of freedom, but rather to educate them, so that they can correct any constitutional abuses that contributed or led the way to the abyss of nihilism. Introduction This essay will revisit the age-old concern with the [...]
Several years ago, when I was in Europe leading a pilgrimage tour to England with Joseph Pearce, I learned that the Shroud of Turin was to be on display for veneration in Turin. After the pilgrimage in England I made my way to Italy where I was joined by a friend. After a few days [...]
For those doing all right by themselves like Flannery O’Connor’s Misfit, Christ’s Resurrection from the dead throws everything off balance because it introduces something entirely new. To believe the testimony of the Gospels opens avenues to happiness that are entirely discomfiting to the complacency of mere identity. Flannery O’Connor had a way of compressing whole [...]
"The Lord of the Rings" is not an allegorical story, nor should it be treated as such, but that does not mean that the story cannot be used to contemplate and plumb the depths of humanity and its relation to the divine. That J.R.R. Tolkien had a great dislike for his works being called “allegories” [...]
He saw her from the bottom of the stairs Before she saw him. She was starting down, Looking back over her shoulder at some fear. She took a doubtful step and then undid it To raise herself and look again. He spoke Advancing toward her: ‘What is it you see From up there always—for I [...]
If the stars fell; night’s nameless dreams Of bliss and blasphemy came true, If skies were green and snow were gold, And you loved me as I love you; […]