Meeting Gollum
Joseph Pearce recalls a close encounter with Smeagol's dark alter ego... Meeting Gollum - Joseph Pearce (jpearce.co)
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Hearing Voices with Daws Butler
Thirty-five years ago, family and friends filed into Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Beverly Hills, California, for a funeral Mass. After suffering a stroke and battling pneumonia, Charles Dawson Butler had died of a heart attack at age seventy-one. His colleagues served as pall bearers, and interment was at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City. According [...]
Seventy Years of James Bond
Seventy years ago, in April, 1953, Ian Fleming published his first book, a novel called Casino Royale. In it he introduced James Bond, a character that has become as enduring a figure in popular culture as Sherlock Holmes. Despite Fleming’s fourteen Bond books, probably most people know Bond from the twenty-seven theatrical movies about him that [...]
A Trappist’s Monastic Enlightenment
A common misconception is to equate the words “monastic” and “medieval,” and modern people tend to be surprised to learn that Catholic monks still exist and that they no longer live like the collection of circus freaks in The Name of the Rose. However, a few folks have read The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton [...]
Of Bird Hikes, Kittens, and Dreams: The Little Island and Ageless Children’s Literature
If you are not a bird watcher, your first bird hike can be excruciating. In 45 minutes you can cover 500 yards in the assorted company of people who stand, stare and occasionally mumble odd phrases like “wing-bar,” “downy,” and “drink-your-tea.” The experience can be a little surreal until you also enter into that surreal world, [...]
Storks, Life, and The Wheel on the School: Wonder and Community in Ageless Children’s Literature
When you do not wonder, no one is important except yourself. But when you do wonder, the whole universe is important. You begin to notice everyone and everything, and you discover both the connections and the gaps between everyone and everything. When your wonder moves like a threaded needle through the fabric of the world, you [...]
March/April 2023 Issue – If Music be the Food of Love, Mark the Music!
Sample Content from Our Latest Issue Table of Contents Sample Article Darkness at Noon and the Light of Christ In 1972, a man brandishing a hammer and screaming, “I’m Jesus Christ! I have risen from the dead!” attacked Michelangelo’s Pieta in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, doing considerable damage to the marble statue’s eye, veil, nose, [...]
Running Away Naked with the Church Fathers
During Lent, much of the emphasis concentrates on a metaphorical sojourn in the desert. Liturgical and devotional readings help place Christians alongside Jesus during His forty days of temptation in the wilderness. However, that time of testing is also a time of training, preparing for the greater travail and ultimate triumph marked by the sacred Triduum. [...]