Elizabeth Scalia on prosperity’s constant conflict :
Though our impoverished origins were centuries established, the only remaining connection to them is in our church, and for many of our siblings and cousins that is a tenuous connection, indeed, for prosperity and good fortune rarely prompt us to worship anything beyond ourselves and our stuff; we do not often fall to our knees in thanksgiving, or with a heart opened to surrendering all that stuff in exchange for a whole life full of Christ.
In pondering the boxes of Christmas, and packing up that cracked lantern, I did not feel like the queen of all I surveyed; rather, I felt robbed of something, and ruled over; owned by ownership.
Notes on Anosmia
One morning several years ago, as my wife, Wendy, and I were having breakfast together, I had…
Empire of Unreality
Shiva Naipaul (1945–1985) was the author of three novels and two books of mordant dispatches from places…
The Dreadful Christ of Pär Lagerkvist
It’s dangerous to meet a god,” says the disgraced Pythia in Pär Lagerkvist’s The Sibyl. Her observation…