It recently became widely known that the favorite painting of Pope Francis is the White Crucifixion by Marc Chagall. The news stirred up considerable speculation and controversy. Chagall, born Moishe Segal in the Polish-Lithuanian village of Vitebsk (now in Belarus), was probably the most prominent . . . . Continue Reading »
Teaching Dante’s Divine Comedy last semester, I hoped to cruise through the Purgatorio to make sure we completed the Paradiso by semester’s end. But my students wouldn’t let me skip canto 25—they stopped there, awestruck. I think we spent longer in the seventh cornice on the mount of . . . . Continue Reading »
Suzanne is a forty-year-old mother of two who recently attended an Evangelical women’s Bible study in a suburb of Chicago. At this particular gathering the topic was infertility. The church had brought in two guest speakers. One spoke of how she and her husband had spent years unsuccessfully . . . . Continue Reading »
She was known as “the Little Piano Girl” from East Liberty, Pittsburgh, and grew up to be one of the first ladies of jazz. But the story of Mary Lou Williams, from child prodigy to world-class artist, is not just about jazz.Born in Atlanta in 1910, Mary Lou’s family suffered from . . . . Continue Reading »
“What makes this team special?” a reporter asked University of Virginia basketball coach Tony Bennett after his Cavaliers beat Syracuse to sew up the Atlantic Coast Conference championship. It was a typical sports-journalistic question, but Bennett’s answer wasn’t typical. “Humility,” Bennett instantly replied, then looked down and waited for the next question.
Before we worried about the effect of the digital word on the printed word, we worried about the effect of writing on speech. This debate, as old as Plato’s Phaedrus, is kept alive by Page Meets Stage, a New York arts event where two poets from the two traditions square off against each other. . . . . Continue Reading »
“You see too deeply into things to be able to laugh nicely,” wrote fairy tale author and art critic John Ruskin to his friend, George MacDonald, in 1863. Ruskin was referring to the “curious mixture” of childlike levity and thematic depth in MacDonald’s then-unpublished short story, The Light Princess. Continue Reading »
Recently, Fox and National Geographic aired a follow-up to Carl Sagan’s Cosmos hosted by science popularizer, Neil deGrasse Tyson. With this new series, Tyson hopes to inspire a new generation to wonder at and study the universe. The show is certainly well produced and fascinating, though it is not without its controversies.
I’ve always been caught by words. Lines of poetry, in particular, have shown up on the doorstep of my memory, been invited in for fellowship, and never left. Take Shakespeare’s “Dirge,” for example, Golden lads and girls all must,As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.Humorous and . . . . Continue Reading »
Attention all First Things readers in greater Pittsburgh: Loyal reader Bill Stickman would like to organize a ROFTERs (Readers of First Things) group to meet each month to discuss articles in the current issue. If you’re interested, please contact Bill by . . . . Continue Reading »
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