Abstraction Rightly Understood
Part III in an ongoing series, Localism and the Universal Church. Read Part I, and Part II.
Berwyn, PA. In the last installment of this...
Glenn Beck Gives Utopia a Bad Name
So Glenn Beck has proposed his grandest scheme yet: the construction of separate planned community, literally built around (in terms of architecture and overall...
Modesty’s Retreat
Over a drink with a fellow Canadian ex-pat about a month ago, I rather wistfully (and irresponsibly) indulged in some wishful thinking as I...
The Twenty Seven
Marbledale, Ct. I was travelling back from a meeting in the Hudson Valley when the news of the Newtown Rampage reached me. The shell-shocked radio...
Behind the Beautiful Forevers, and the Ground on Which Communities Are...
The final sentence in Behind the Beautiful Forevers--Katherine Boo's wonderfully written, devastatingly detailed narrative of several fascinating, despairing stories that took place over the...
Where Will You Die?
Hidden Spring Lane. “I plan on dying here.” The words came quite unbidden and surprised me. We were in the process of building a...
Life Under Compulsion: Bad Universality
I had not thought that the tsars of education could possibly have come up with another idea as inhuman or stupid as have been...
The Pickup Truck and the Tommy Gun
During the Republican primary, Newt Gingrich joked that “you can’t put a gun rack on Volt.” Newt was, of course, trying to identify...
Where was God?
Hidden Springs, VA. In the days following the horrific events in Newtown, a theological debate has arisen, a debate that goes well beyond theoretical...
Of “That Great Furnace, the Heart of Dickens”
A perennial question in this season: which version of Dickens’ Christmas Carol to watch?
Somehow I can’t seem to muster much interest in any of...