The Narthex

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…

My ongoing dialogue with Karl Meyer, once a mentor and always an independent radical, has hit a rough patch. In a recent note he tells me that all is not well. “I wonder how it is possible,” he asks, “to have an intelligent dialogue with a philosopher who posits a…

The kingdom of heaven is like diving for sunken treasure and risking your life to find it. A coworker catalogued and filed "As Built" plans for us engineers after we’d finished our construction projects. I was intrigued by Sandy’s hobby of deep-sea diving, often done at great risk to life…

In my last post, gentle readers, I introduced my former mentor, Karl Meyer. Long associated with the Catholic Worker and now an octogenarian, Meyer was and is both a peace activist of renown and a prescient environmentalist. Yet some time ago, this convert put aside his faith. Karl has now…

Mt. Everest is the highest mountain in the Himalayan system, located near the common border of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China. Everest, at 29,032 feet, has drawn climbers from every nation. Even the blind have risked their lives to climb it. Sir Edmund Hillary famously did so on May 23, 1953.…

Inadequate nutrition afflicted many children in the WWII years, due to food rationing. At an early age I developed myopia, and I suspect poor nutrition partly caused it. Evidence is mounting that this vision problem is growing around the world, with recent estimates at 30% and forecasts that by 2050…

In the late 1980s, a friend and I rode a trolley south from San Diego to the Imperial Beach sandcastle contest. After a short walk from the station, we stood before a packed crowd assembled around various castle projects. Some were 10-feet square and upwards of seven feet high, with…

Quantum physicists have learned that subatomic particles change their conduct when being observed. That proven fact raises the question whether the particles respond to being watched, as we do. Psychologists call that response, in humans, the Hawthorne Effect. For who can resist presenting the best version of himself under the…

After walking to San Diego’s Spruce Street in exploratory mode, I chanced upon a charming historical site, which still hovers in my memory: a suspension footbridge that looked to be about 400 feet long. Later I learned it was built in 1912 for access to a trolley line by homes…

When I was twelve and going to Mass daily, my Masonic father slammed his hand on our kitchen table one evening and asked, “What’s this about daily Mass? No more of it.” I suppose my "excessive" religiosity was from watching Bishop Fulton Sheen on TV every week. Perhaps because my…

My globetrotting has currently landed me in the Northern Italian city of Bologna for about a half year. A large university town with a vibrant social scene, Bologna also happens to be the location of the famous Basilica San Domenico (St. Dominic, 13th-century Catholic priest and founder of the Dominican…

I received a phone call from my 91-year-old friend Lou, who had asked me for advice on several occasions. I had just awakened from a nap, but my grogginess vanished on hearing the urgent tone of his voice. Lately his health had been failing from a hiatal hernia that caused…

Review of: Mere Marriage: Sexual Difference and Christian Doctrine. By Andrew D. Cannon, Ph.D. Alphonsus Publishing, available at MereMarriage.com. 215 pages. $24.95.   George Weigel devoted eleven pages of his 1999 biography of Pope John Paul II, Witness to Hope, to the saint-pope’s Theology of the Body. He concluded that…

Houdini was the master of illusion in the 1920s. Like today’s David Copperfield -- the highest paid solo performer in history -- Houdini mystified rapt audiences with incredible death-defying acts. As a youth he worked his card tricks and vanishing acts in dime circuses. After training as a locksmith he…