Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling

I'm typing this on Sunday, still thinking about that excellent Noonan piece, which TDE reader Mike says can be found here. * * * * * * * That link will take you to Commentators.com. What is that site? I'd never heard of it, but it looks pretty good. I've bookmarked it. * * * * * * * This passage comes from an interview with perhaps one of the most disagreeable individuals to ungrace the Earth over the past 50 years (Christopher Hitchens), whose hatred of the God and the Catholic Church, combined with his love of alcohol, crippled his thinking, but I liked it: "I remember once going to an evening with Umberto Eco talking to Susan Sontag and the definition of the word 'polymath' came up. Eco said it was his ambition to be a polymath; Sontag challenged him and said the definition of a polymath is someone who's interested in everything and nothing else." * * * * * * * Long-time TDE readers know that I believe that every modern scientific discovery in the areas of human development merely confirms things that ancient spirituality already knew. The doctor of psychology gets a huge grant to discover that meditation makes a person calmer throughout the day, whereas the lowliest of medieval monks could've told him the same thing. It looks like someone has finally written a book about it. It looks like it's worth reading. * * * * * * * Learned last weekend while listening to a podcast with Mitch Pacwa: The Diocese of Fairbanks is, geographically, twice the size of Texas. It is served by only 14 priests (I think I heard that number right). * * * * * * * A woman called into Fr. Pacwa's Open Line show last Wednesday. She identified herself as a Jewish woman who knows God exists, but that's about as far as she's gotten. Pacwa recommended GKC's Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man. Both books I've meaning to take back off my shelf. * * * * * * * Alas, my first copy of Orthodoxy is missing. I frequently lose books and have learned to roll with the lost rolls, but this would be quite a loss. It's volume 1 of the Ignatius Press GKC series, which also contains Heretics . . . and ample underlining of things I found relevant as a 22-year-old Lutheran. This loss, which is now a month old since discovery, bums me out a bit. I'd ask for your prayers, but that seems a bit extreme for such a trifle. * * * * * * * Though whenever I'm inclined not to bother Him with anything petty, I'm reminded of George MacDonald's saying, "Anything large enough for a wish to light upon, is large enough to hang a prayer upon."