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The Enchantments of Mammon Thoughts: Part III And we would allow her advocates who are not poets but lovers of poetry to plead her cause in prose without meter, and show that she is not only delightful but beneficial to orderly government and all the life of man. (Republic X, 158) Reading The Enchantments of Mammon,…

Portraits serve two functions: one, as introduction, the other, commemoration. Portraits are an introduction to someone you have never met—perhaps a princess you are interested in marrying (or, at least, your parents and the GDP of your kingdom are invested in you marrying), a glimpse of who and what the person is about, looks like,…

All maps, not just those illustrated mazes, contain an inherent tension between going and staying. We consult maps in order to leave: which highways to merge onto, which exit to make, which turn to take. But we also make maps to know where we are: to get our bearings, to grow roots. Maps orient us,…

work-weariness,earned rest; the falling again from loneliness to love— Wendell Berry, “Goods” It is the Lord, you said,as I peered into the distance.Could it be? I marveled, that a heart once broken,is stitch back intosome greater life? I left my netsand swam strand-ward,to find a stranger. Could you be him my soul seeks?Are you hefor…

I have heard through the Catholic NYC grapevines of various sorts about masses being held at XYZ locations by pastors who you could have guessed in your sleep. The culture warrior priests who refuse to find any wheat in the tares of our society. Of course, it’s a disaster of a culture. But welcome to…

Sir, I have no one to put me into the poolwhen the water is stirred up;while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.”Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.”Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked. Jerusalem, May 2017 No one here but…

“Perhaps there is in places a certain value: they make it possible for you to seek and find certain things in your own soul. When you have found them, you begin to know the place has served you: if the place is pleasant and pretty doesn’t mean much anymore. It has only one further value:…

We think the sacred is in what is set-apart, preserved, and kept spotless. But the holy is in the broken. What’s shattered is the sacred. Whatever bones inside of us have been fractured, whatever aches when we walk or groans when we sit still too long. The discomfort is our Horeb, our meeting place with…

I see you walk through the door.I watch you because you are dark-haired and dark-skinned and bearded, and I think that is beautiful. Your ankles are slight and they peak out between your athletic joggers and sneakers. You are beautiful. You open up your book and I note the name of the author in sansevière,…