Diary
The Fable of The Angel and The Onion by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
It’s only a story, but it’s a nice story. I used to hear it when I was a child from Matryona, my cook, who is still with me. It’s like this. Once upon a time there was a peasant woman and a very wicked woman she was. And she died and did not leave a…
John of The Cross’ Luminous Darkness and True Religious Art
It is what John of the cross called “luminous darkness,” and it explains the simultaneous coexistence of deep suffering and intense joy in the saints, which would be impossible for most of us to even imagine. Eastern Orthodoxy believed that if something was authentic religious art, it would always have a bright sadness. I think…
On Being an Introvert (and an Extrovert)
“One of my favorite Philosophers, Soren Kierkegaard, once said this: “Its in the presence of people, that I find my love of solitude. And, its in my time of solitude, I find my love of people.” I find this statement, as an introvert, remarkably true. Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book Life Together makes wonderful notes…
I wish I could read faster
These books are all on my Amazon wish list. I promised myself I wouldn’t order anymore books until I finish the four I’m currently reading–I wish I could read faster :-/
Synthetic Appropriation and Protraction of the Body in Pain
I didn’t realize I had a hole in my shirt until I put it on and walked out the door. Quietly close to ignorance that only lasts until it’s chased away. Don’t we all have holes in our shirts… Further more, holes in our hearts? Our tattered dignity is draped around our form, smelling like…
The Self Knows That Self Is Not Enough: Kathleen O’Dwyer, Is Love An Art?
“The human need for love is rooted in our awareness of our individual separateness and aloneness within the natural and social worlds. This is one of the existential dichotomies which characterize the human condition: “Man is alone and he is related at the same time” (Fromm, Man for Himself, 1947). Many philosophers have addressed this…
Philosophical Zombie Attack!
Zombies in philosophy are imaginary creatures used to illuminate problems about consciousness and its relation to the physical world. Unlike those in films or witchraft, they are exactly like us in all physical respects but without conscious experiences: by definition there is ‘nothing it is like’ to be a zombie. Yet zombies behave just like…
Oscar Romero And The Violence Of Love
We have never preached violence, except the violence of love, which left Christ nailed to a cross, the violence that we must each do to ourselves to overcome our selfishness and such cruel inequalities among us. The violence we preach is not the violence of the sword, the violence of hatred. It is the violence…
White Girls on Trial: Casey Anthony and Amanda Knox
I admit I know virtually nothing about the trial of Casey Anthony, who is accused of killing her almost three-year-old toddler, Caylee. I find the media and the public’s obsessive preoccupation with this murder trial to be morbid, just as it was with the 1996 Jon Benet Ramsey murder case. But, most of all, I…