The Narthex

At the head of my favorite exercise trail, which goes deep into the wooded back hills, stands a grove of trees maybe a hundred feet tall and aged that many years. A few weeks last autumn, I noticed people collecting things on the ground and stuffing them into satchels. They…

In 1967, during my hippie days, I stood on a landing between the first and second floor of the Boston Public Library admiring the 160-year-old, side by side, marble busts of Christ and Lucifer. Sculpted in 1845 by Horatio Greenbough, these have been on display in the library unharmed since…

Last week a friend with ties to Africa sent me a picture of some local nuns in Tanzania. Their ministry is to shelter at-risk children. Commenting on the picture, he noted that “All the ‘white’ children are albinos. Nine albinos, none of these pictured here, were killed in 2019 for…

While waiting in line at a supermarket, I stole a peek inside a gossip magazine. A title, The Pressure of Being Perfect, and a picture of Princess Kate, all smiles, had caught my attention. I realize the world holds a materialistic concept of perfection, but here was an opportunity to see…

I cannot confirm this story, try as I might, but I recall that decades ago there occurred one of those sex scandals in the Australian Federal Parliament in which the alleged offender was turned on and savaged from all sides by his virtuous fellows. Until a venerable senior politician (I think…

During my city engineering career, I mentored a young fellow worker. When he was a child, Michael—whom I nicknamed Grasshopper (Kung Fu)—had a narrow escape with his parents from Vietnam just before the Communists took over. He later graduated from UCSD and started working as a civil engineer. Back in…

In the early 1980s, while walking through an enclosed shopping mall I decided to visit a gaming arcade. The place was buzzing with youth decked out in spiked purple hairdos, dragon tattoos, riveted leathers blazoned with gang symbols, and long drooping chains from hip pockets. The din of silicon pings…

Of late we’ve heard much about caution—indeed, an abundance of caution, and rightly so. My caveat about caution is this: that we keep it in context. The context is the virtue of prudence. And what is prudence? Above all it is right reason in acting. We shouldn’t confuse it with…

A young boy in my neighborhood walked up to me, spotting something in my hand. “What’s that?” he asked. William was a mixed-race child with handsome features. He was fatherless, so I once helped him fix his trainer bike. “It’s a chrysalis, I told him. “Soon the shell will split…

Every generation complains about the shortcomings of its successors. Grievances about the state of “the world today” have filled the thoughts of the grumpy (aged and ageing) since time began. But there’s never been a time when all was well. Dickens said it so nicely: “It was the best of…

Decades ago, to avoid social isolation, I took up ballroom dancing and within a month met an attractive woman who was my age. She could dance well and had a compatible personality, so we hit it off. We entered dance contests and won prizes. We dined out every week and…

Pope Benedict XVI once famously remarked that the Church of the future "will become small."  Rather than exercising some prophetic gift, the Pope was simply exercising an awareness of history.  Each time the Church becomes comfortable, it falls into decline and dwindles to a remnant through which it will be…

On October 13th John Henry Newman will be canonized, the first English person in modern times to be raised to the altar. Newman comes to us as an eminent Victorian and a convert. Some say his canonization has been long in coming because he was prolific and polemical. Whether or…

The Earth is flat.  Not actually flat, but flat in the sense that man no longer sees a horizon.  Do you want proof of that?  Look no further than Labor Day.  Invented to “celebrate” American workers and their achievements, it is now little more than a bookend marking the end…

Domestic terrorism. Religious persecution, both secular and professedly religious. The posturing of pro-abortion extremists. Assaults on democracy. Economic wars. Some weeks it’s crushingly obvious: we live in a valley of tears. Psalm 84:6-8 speaks of such a valley. So does the Marian anthem, “Hail, Holy Queen,” which so many recite…