I noticed it last year and the year before but it has gotten worse. Entirely out of hand, gross, bizarre and down right morbid: Halloween decorations and costumes. Halloween used to be marked with a carefully carved pumpkin on their front steps. Its flickering candle fearlessly held back the darkening cold of impending winter.
These days [...]
I offer special greetings to any of you who are here at the encouragement of a friend, a neighbor, a co-worker, or a family member. I want to assure you that it is not my intention to convert you to our religious way of life. There will be no altar call, nor will you be [...]
Reading from The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dosteovsky[A man seeks advice from a monastic elder.]
“I love mankind,” he said, “but I am amazed at myself: the more I love mankind in general, the less I love people in particular, that is, individually, as separate persons. In my dreams I often went so far as to [...]
Fashions change, the spotlight moves on, the cultural heroes of today are forgotten tomorrow, but somehow through it all, generation after generation, the influence of some people just keeps on going. Giants in their day disappear; who reads Swinburne any more, or Tennyson, Longfellow, or Ford Maddox Ford? Meanwhile, every year brings fresh productions of [...]