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The following quotations (with my emphases in bold) are about the effects of "phenomenalism" on our souls, the belief that individual events or details are all that compose reality. Phenomenalism (as used by this author) means that there are no unifying principles of being, no "substances" indicated by the disconnected bits of data we observe. In [...]
My earliest memories are hinged upon the love of stories. In time, I discovered that the same story-driven essence present in tales that enraptured me as a child was the undergirding of history, and it drew me in through my Seton Home Study programs. I owe them a life-time debt of gratitude for introducing me more [...]
Around 1766 a new form of fun began, so 2016 is as good a time as any to commemorate it. While for centuries people with mathematical minds had been amusing themselves with chess and cards, 250 years ago people with more pictorial minds got their turn. By 1766 John Spilsbury, a young printer and map maker [...]
It all started one Christmas as I rummaged through the CD racks at the library, in search of Christmas music different than the usual run-of-the-mill. I had several gigs lined up for the season, and planned on singing “Coventry Carol”, so when I stumbled across a CD called “A Midwinter Night’s Dream” that included it in [...]
Thomas Merton’s poem “Pass through My Will” takes the reader on a deeply mystical journey through layers upon layers of spiritual significance. At the same time, it captures the simplicity of a folk song and the heart-felt purity of a romantic ballad. The musical accompaniment by John Michael Talbot broadens its beauty even further and makes [...]
Human beings have always been story-tellers. Since the earliest days, we have striven to express our new-found ability to understand reality and interact more fully with the world around us. We alone among Creation were given that sublime combination of intelligence and emotions to enable us to seek out the truth and knowingly revel in it. [...]
In 1916 Edgar Lee Masters, then forty-eight, published an expanded version of his collection of poems, Spoon River Anthology. Still in print, it consists of 244 short free verse poems, each standing as an epitaph for someone buried in the hillside cemetery of the fictional town of Spoon River. Nearly all the poems are in the [...]
I was privileged this past weekend to be one of the speakers at the second annual G. K. Chesterton Conference in Ponchatoula, Louisiana. One of the highlights of this vibrant event was hearing a delightful homeschooled student read the essay with which she had won a Chesterton essay contest. The highly gifted young lady, Lilliana Johnson, has granted me permission to publish [...]