The Narthex

Men and women are not biologically equal in function and physique. But the extreme liberal camp has promoted that baseless notion, insisting the sexes are interchangeable. Women are not physiologically built like men, as the task of raising the young requires specific biological and…

Before color movies, TVs, and then iPhones came into widespread use, radio mystery stories like The Shadow Knows had the power to fascinate. The Orson Welles radio broadcast War of the Worlds was so vivid that it caused panic in the streets of major cities. I suspect that same broadcast…

The archeological record of ritual burial practices indicates widespread belief in the afterlife, around the world and across time. The oldest evidence of prehistoric belief in the afterlife was discovered in the 1960s near Sungir, Russia, at a 34,000-year-old burial site of a middle-aged man. He was laid to rest…

The first recorded evidence of induced abortion is from the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus dated to 1550 BC. The only evidence in ancient laws of a death penalty for abortion is found in Assyrian law: the Code of Assura, c. 1075 BC. The epic Ramayana, c. 750BC, has a description of…

One morning this spring, I noticed my backyard lawn had an esker, a row of fresh dirt mounds. Each pile had a horseshoe shape, and I soon learned how they came to be. A gopher was tunneling underground. This rascal was pushing dirt to the surface from its nesting constructs.…

The practice of bloody sacrifice reaches far back in human history. For instance, archeologists recently dug up the bones of defective infants killed in Denmark 5,000 years ago. Perhaps the sacrifice was a primitive stab at eugenics; perhaps there is more to the story. To keep its vast empire intact,…

Our neighborhood still has mail -- mostly ads -- hand-delivered by a robust man in his sixties with whom I occasionally chat. He’s an intelligent man whose astute and informative perspective makes for lively conversations. For three weeks, someone had replaced him. Yesterday, I was glad to see Joe was…

During its early history, the Christian church safeguarded the doctrine of the Holy Trinity by deeming deviant beliefs such as Montanism, Arianism, and Pelagianism as heresies. Even today, certain denominations such as Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Pentecostals reject the Holy Trinity. Jews and Muslims consider any belief beyond monotheism as…

Three old men tagging eighty years old, myself included, were in a conference call discussing the State of the Union. It didn’t matter to us what Biden, a fellow geezer, would say Tuesday night. We could guess what he’d talk about: youth drug addiction, failing infrastructure, corporate taxes, COVID, NATO,…

I learned in engineering economics that quantity diminishes quality when constrained by limited resources. Manufacturers, farmers, engineers, and artists are subject to that reality. It applies to all human endeavors. Examples of this are found in the produce aisle of your grocery store. Commercially-grown, gas-ripened fruits like apricots are bland…

At age 12, I was rushed home from camp with pain in my abdomen. The family physician drove to our house and palpated my innards. He was a general practitioner who could read signs of ill health in ridged fingernails, bags under the eyes, and a beefy red tongue. That…

When I was a 6th-grader walking home with friends from elementary school in the 50s, we would talk about all the interesting things heard in the news, like the Boston Braves leaving Boston or the first man to conquer Mt. Everest. We wondered what it was like to be Castro,…

Betrayal is a part of human nature. If someone determines he may benefit by snitching on a friend, he may indeed give the Judas Kiss, an act appearing as one of friendship but which is harmful to the recipient. Judas is the model betrayer: weak-willed and full of selfish interest…

The pet industry is reaping billions from modern man's spiritual desolation -- that sense of emptiness and disquiet that aches for remedy. As workaholism and an ever-higher cost of living moves people to delay or forego marriage and children, pets fill the void in their lives. It’s a sign of…

I was a candidate for the Trappist monastery, back in 1968. Personal pets were not allowed—an ancient discipline to enhance the inner companionship of God. Though written rules about pets were unlikely before the 13th century, Ancrene Wisse (Rule for Anchoresses) made it clear that a religious recluse should avoid…