Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb, Now leaves His well-belov'd imprisonment, There He hath made Himself to His intent Weak enough, now into the world to come; But O, for thee, for Him, hath the inn no room? Yet lay Him in this stall, and from the Orient, Stars and wise men will travel to [...]
The bells of waiting Advent ring, The Tortoise stove is lit again And lamp-oil light across the night Has caught the streaks of winter rain. In many a stained-glass window sheen From Crimson Lake to Hooker’s Green. The holly in the windy hedge And round the Manor House the yew Will soon be stripped to [...]
The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap, His hair was like a light. (O weary, weary were the world, But here is all aright.) The Christ-child lay on Mary's breast His hair was like a star. (O stern and cunning are the kings, But here the true hearts are.) The Christ-child lay on Mary's heart, His [...]
A saint, Romain, cut off our father’s head And nailed it on a Rouen church, they said, For he was evil (so the saint did swear; I would not know, I simply was not there). For fifteen hundred years thereafter we Are banished from all churches, the Gargouilles Or gargoyles; made of unforgiving stone, Condemned [...]
Last Christmas Eve, my family, like many American families, watched Miracle on 34th Street. I don’t think I had ever seen the original; most of our kids had not seen any version. We thoroughly enjoyed it. I was impressed with Natalie Wood’s performance—a 7 year old actress playing a 7 year old very well. I [...]
St. Rose of Lima One of my fondest memories—precious, to use the word properly—is of my great aunt Lonnie taking me to one of the oldest churches in Great Bend, Kansas. I was probably three or four, and we were alone in the church, early in the morning. I can’t remember exactly why [...]
Plenty of Christmas gifts have been suggested by our imaginative contributors for imaginative conservatives; some affordable, some posh, but always appropriate. But what do we give to our Leftist friends, assuming that we have any? One should not suggest anything that mocks their obvious deficiencies, even if those are self-induced; after all, Christmas gifts ought [...]
What does it mean to teach in an age of ideology? At first glance, especially for conservatives, the answer appears to be obvious: to advocate for conservative ideas and principles against the prevailing ideologies of relativism, feminism, multiculturalism, and other “politically correct” dogmas that dominate the institutions of American higher education today. Alternatively, if you [...]
Political Philosophy: A Historical Introduction by Michael J. White […]
Have we, as a culture, lost our ability to appreciate satire? Like Socratic questioning, satire can help us “recollect” the timeless truths that we apparently have always known, but just forgotten for awhile. The question occurred to me recently as I was reading Gordon Wood’s Revolutionary Characters, picked up on a Thanksgiving trip to Colonial [...]
The notion of the president as comforter-in-chief fits snugly with the notion of political “solutions”—e.g., gun control—to essentially moral and theological problems—e.g., schoolhouse massacres. In a well-meant message of consolation, delivered Sunday at Newtown, President Obama declared that “These tragedies must end. And to end them we must change.” He again used the word “change,” [...]
Christmas is all about grace and redemption. It’s also about the strange and wonderful person who wanders the world in the hope (conscious or unconscious) about grace. It’s also, of course, about the personal, loving, and creative God who became man and wandered among us for a while. What’s more wonderful than that? My Christmas [...]
In Aristotle's view, “true wealth” was finite, restricted to those articles “useful to the association of the polis or the household,” and thus necessary to sustain “the good life.” The exchange of commodities for money with the aim of making a profit was an artificial, and potentially destructive, enterprise. Trade, Aristotle declared, should be mutually beneficial, [...]
The world is supposed to end this Friday (or possibly on Sunday, or not any time soon) coinciding with the expiration of the Mayan “Long Count” calendar, which at 5,125 years-old survived considerably longer than did the Mayan civilisation. (Don’t smirk: your local Wal-Mart sells processed cheese slices that may outlast Western Civilisation by a [...]