Category Archives: christianity

“What I will never see again I must love forever.”

It need not be said that the full implications of this statement take a lifetime to realize. Of significantly less consequence is how ‘love as memory’ affects what we profess. I’ve been curious recently about the structure of a short essay by Strauss featuring this passage: In Cohen’s deliberately exaggerated expression, God’s being becomes actual …

January 31, 2012 – 10:49 am | By ashok | Posted in christianity, love, philosophy | Comments (0)

Christmas Meditation: Morten Lauridsen, “O Magnum Mysterium”

“O Magnum Mysterium:” performed by King’s College Cambridge | by UST Alumni Singers Shared this a number of times in a number of places. What strikes me is the composer’s emphasis on “admirabile sacramentum” (wonderful sacrament) and “animalia” (animals). Where is man in the Latin text? It bears repeating the chromatism of this work lends …

December 25, 2011 – 10:00 am | By ashok | Posted in christianity, music | Comments (0)

The significance of “dishonest wealth:” On Luke 16:1-13

1. Luke 16: 1-13, from the Catholic Study Bible (“The New American Bible,” published by Oxford University Press) – Then he also said to his disciples, “A rich man had a steward who was reported to him for squandering his property. He summoned him and said, “What is this I hear about you? Prepare a …

December 16, 2011 – 3:49 pm | By ashok | Posted in christianity | Comments (0)

Rant: This “America is a Christian Nation” thesis is a load of crap, and potentially more dangerous than Birthers or Truthers

How Christian were the Founders? (nytimes, and they’re way more generous than I’m going to be; h/t LGF) I don’t want to spend too much time on this topic – the arguments for the Christianity of America as a whole depend on a lot of dishonesty and cherry-picking. I realize for those of you sympathetic …

February 16, 2010 – 7:09 pm | By ashok | Posted in christianity, politics | Comments (8)

Rant: Some Atheist Bloggers Need to Watch Their Tone

Pascal, Pensees (244): “Why, do you not say yourself that the sky and the birds prove God?” – “No.” – “Does your religion not say so?” – “No. For though it is true in a sense for some souls whom God has enlightened in this way, yet it is untrue for the majority.” – There …

October 7, 2009 – 8:22 am | By ashok | Posted in blogging, christianity, personal | Comments (6)

Establishment: On “As sad as the scent of smoked fish,” by Ario Farin

["Jacob's children"] (my title) Ario Farin As sad as the scent of smoked fish is up in the attic as loving the chimney leans against a tight sky, an erratic ladder seeking a gap in the stream of yellow cloud. The wall holds up the sudden drop of a branch, the flight of sweet cherries …

September 27, 2009 – 3:37 am | By ashok | Posted in christianity, poetry | Comments (5)

Holy Family: On Jane Kenyon’s “Mosaic of the Nativity: Serbia, Winter 1993″

Mosaic of the Nativity: Serbia, Winter 1993 (from “The Writer’s Almanac”) Jane Kenyon On the domed ceiling God is thinking: I made them my joy, and everything else I created I made to bless them. But see what they do! I know their hearts and arguments: “We’re descended from Cain. Evil is nothing new, so …

August 16, 2009 – 10:48 am | By ashok | Posted in christianity, poetry | Tagged | Comments (2)

On Hopkins’ “The Caged Skylark”

The Caged Skylark Gerard Manley Hopkins (from bartleby.com) AS a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage Man’s mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells— That bird beyond the remembering his free fells; This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life’s age. Though aloft on turf or perch or poor low stage, Both sing sometímes the sweetest, …

April 12, 2009 – 12:53 am | By ashok | Posted in christianity, poetry | Tagged , , , | Comments (1)

Comments on Excerpts from Kierkegaard’s “Every Good and Every Perfect Gift is from Above”

for Bill Farris Note: I am working from the excerpts of this text in A Kierkegaard Anthology, ed. Robert Bretall, trans. David Swenson & Lillian Swenson. I cannot find the text as a whole online. The danger here is not only there could be a giant passage by SK [Soren Kierkegaard] saying “one day this …

February 17, 2009 – 12:53 am | By ashok | Posted in christianity, philosophy | Comments (2)

On Hopkins’ “Heaven-Haven”

Heaven-Haven Gerard Manley Hopkins A nun takes the veil I have desired to go Where springs not fail, To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail And a few lilies blow. And I have asked to be Where no storms come, Where the green swell is in the havens dumb, And out of the …

February 12, 2009 – 12:23 am | By ashok | Posted in christianity, poetry | Tagged , , , | Comments (5)