classics digests, reflections and reviews
In a previous post, I wrote about how a person would draw lessons on faith from nature, as shown in Prince Andrew’s encounter with the Oak Tree in Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Similar encounters are scattered throughout the novel. Tolstoy believes that communion with nature is necessary if man is to live with integrity, not just to survive. He could not have written about such communion so vividly, if he […]
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At the edge of the road stood an oak. Probably ten times the age of the birches that formed the forest, ten times as thick and twice as tall as they. It was an enormous tree, its girth twice as great as a man could embrace, and some of its branches had been broken off and its bark scarred. With its huge ungainly limbs sprawling unsymmetrically, and its gnarled hands […]
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Nature is transcendent. No work of art evokes more profound aesthetic feelings than nature. We feel the presence of the Artist, when we are confronted with, and immersed in, the beauty of His masterpiece. In that moment, what is seen becomes insignificant, compared with what is unseen. It is the Beauty that is unseen that we long to be part of, and be one with.
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On June 30, 2023, the last day of the court’s term, the Supreme Court of the United Status issued its ruling in the case of 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis. The ruling was the same as I had predicted six months ago. The opinions are a little disappointing, however. Both the majority and dissent seem to have difficulties reconciling rights to free speech and rights to equal access. The majority […]
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Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28, 1963 When we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, Black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words […]
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Four years after Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, there is another case (again originated in Colorado) pending before the Supreme Court of the United States, which seems to pit First Amendment rights against rights of people with protected traits, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis. Like Masterpiece Cakeshop, the petitioner, a web designer, argues that her First Amendment right is violated when she is required by law to […]
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The Question of Infallibility In a previous post, I asked the question, “How do we know that (the magisterium of) the Church is infallible?” Nothing in my Catholic interlocutor’s response addresses my question. In fact, I get the impression time and time again that he is not aiming at dialogue, but using my posts as a launchpad of canned responses of the Catholic Church.[1] However, we agree on one thing: […]
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