The Narthex

Negative portrayals of the Church by the mainstream media are a given, but lately the Associated Press and The New York Times have dealt a few dirty blows. New York’s Cardinal Dolan recently responded to a story in the Associated Press about Catholic organizations and entities receiving relief funds from…

Let us ponder Psalm 46:10: Be still and know that I am God. The purpose of "practicing the Presence" or "mindful meditation” is achieving a quiescent mental state. In my experience, rhythmic breath control for 20 minutes daily, AM and PM, provides good training for contemplation. The human respiratory system…

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…

Healthy human culture is inextricably linked to religion. Christopher Dawson and others have argued that ethical systems are unsustainable in the long term apart from a trust in the immanence of a good God:

Human nature always retains its spiritual character—its bond with the transcendent and the divine. If…

The gravestone of former New York Times editor A. M. Rosenthal reads, “He kept the paper straight.” Last month, A. G. Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times, disavowed “hiding behind” old standards. Sulzberger went on to say, “We’re not retreating from the principles of independence and objectivity. We don’t…

One early weekday morning six years ago, I was steering my enormous shopping cart in narrow Walmart aisles when I heard this announcement: “Welcome, lucky Walmart shoppers. We have an exciting giveaway this morning at the orange desk in the Housewares section. You must be there in the next two…

Casey, the homeless offspring of Gen. Robert E. Lee whom I wrote about last October, sat at a concrete picnic table in our small neighborhood park. The purple Jacarandas were in full bloom everywhere. As I approached during my daily walk, he closed the book Pillars of the Earth by Ken…

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…

We are urged to have serious conversations about race, and we should. In this post, gentle reader, I push a bit to make them more serious. Let’s bypass the cant of the major political parties. And let’s be on watch both for numbing inertia and for hijacked populism. Objectivity helps,…

Joyce was seven when she experienced the Battle of Britain. After WWII ended, she won two swimming championships, then night-schooled for 140 words/min in shorthand. She quit working at sweatshop textile mills after she got a better paying job as a secretary in the Manchester police department. She had a…

During a Sunday morning walk in my lower middle-class neighborhood, I came across a City employee matching paint for a sidewalk wall which had been marked with graffiti. I asked him, not expecting an answer, “Why do kids do this?” “Maybe to feel important, to mark their territory like a…

The destruction of Edward Colston's statue in the English city of Bristol is perfectly understandable in one sense: slavery is a disgusting institution and the involvement and enrichment of Englishmen in that vile trade was utterly reprehensible. To their credit the British later led the world in the virtual eradication…

Context, like character, counts. Allow me to offer a context for the two weeks of protest marches in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. A blogpost has limits but is far preferable to a slogan or a meme. For a start, the murder took place in an ethos…

Various analyses suggest that around 40% of U.S. COVID-19 deaths have taken place at nursing homes. While the data will be refined over time, it’s clear that nursing home residents are an extremely vulnerable population in a pandemic. An article at The American Conservative (June 5) called “Continued Isolation Will…

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…