The absence
Edward Hopper, Sun in an Empty Room (1963). Image source: archi-ethan.blogspot.com The Absence It is this great absence that is like a presence, that compels me to address it without hope of a reply. It is a room I enter from which someone has just gone, the vestibule for the arrival of one who has [...]
Negative theology and the foolishness of progressive postmodern Christians
The Tetragrammaton in Paleo-Hebrew, which today is often written YHWH or Yahweh. Its origin is thought by many to be Exodus 3, in which Moses is instructed to tell the people that “I Am” sent him. In Christian scripture it is translated “The Lord,” written in small caps. Observant Jews write but do not speak [...]
Notes on my delusion
Not deluded, apparently: Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale, 1800. Jefferson is quoted by Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion thus: “Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.” I wonder if Jefferson knew that orthodox Christian [...]
Jules Winnfield on divine intervention
Jules and Vincent eat breakfast and talk philosophy in the famous restaurant scene from Pulp Fiction. There’s some nice dialogue about pigs and dogs before it gets into the deep stuff. Warning: Harsh language. It’s Tarantino, okay? Early last month David Lose wrote an article for the Huffington Post about the Bible. The piece recalls [...]
Behold the Kepler Collection
Kepler‘s planets, seen in silhouette, against their parent stars. The star colors — which are accurate — indicate temperature: the redder, the cooler; the bluer, the hotter. These are not images taken by Kepler, but are generated from Kepler data; measurements of the stars’ temperatures and distances help astronomers determine their luminosities, and once these [...]
XI. Thou shalt not speak before thinking
Fra Angelico, Peter Martyr Enjoins Silence, c.1441. Peter Martyr, known also as St. Peter of Verona, was an Italian Dominican friar whose preaching was responsible for returning many heretics, most notably Cathari, to orthodoxy. Catharism was a religious movement with dualist tendencies; that is, it held that there was a God of Good and a [...]
Art Sunday: Seven from Sister Wendy Beckett
Pia Stern, The Room of Longing (2008). “I saw the spirituality of her images right from the start,” said Sister Wendy of Ms. Stern’s work. Wendy’s enthusiasm for Ms. Stern made me curious, and today I’m a fan. See more of her work here. Used by permission of the artist. Click on image for a [...]
On prayer: Simone Weil and the excluded God
Simone Weil‘s 1935 factory identification photo. In that year she began working as a power press operator at the Alstom Company in Paris. She was highly educated and had many options but chose to work alongside those who had no power. She later wrote, “A modern factory reaches perhaps almost the limit of horror. Everybody [...]
At the risk of pointing out the obvious, we are dust
Last weekend’s tsunami washes over Sendai I will try to make this brief. Today, five things: 1. This is hell. I don’t watch TV news. And I have been busy. So I had not, until this afternoon, watched any of the footage of Japan’s earthquake-tsunami-nuclear-meltdown crisis. It is heartbreaking. The above video came from this [...]
Repost: An ash heap with a view
Oldřich Kulhánek, Job No. 1. Lithograph (2002) This post was published first on 14 September 2010. It seems appropriate for today, Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of the Christian season of Lent. The Old Testament books of Wisdom are among my favorites in the Christian canon (they are also present in the Hebrew Scriptures). [...]
