The Narthex
Scruples over Snagging a Gopher
Guilt wafted over me, but Scripture came to the rescue
By Richard DellOrfano | April 1st 2022 3:30 PMOne morning this spring, I noticed my backyard lawn had an esker, a row of fresh dirt mounds. Each pile had a horseshoe shape, and I soon learned how they came to be. A gopher was tunneling underground. This rascal was pushing dirt to the surface from its nesting constructs.…
READ FULL BLOG POSTCordelia and the Animals
The view that animals have as much right to life as humans has deformed our priorities
By David Daintree | February 25th 2022 4:13 PMIn the last scene of one of Shakespeare’s grimmest tragedies, King Lear, by now an old and broken man, weeps for his dead daughter Cordelia:
No, no, no life? Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, And thou no breath at all? Oh, thou'lt come…
READ FULL BLOG POSTGood Green News
A remedy for climate alarmism's disastrous impact on impressionable souls
By Barbara Rose | December 15th 2021 8:47 PMMisguided "opinion leaders" have induced such panic in our youth that one in five British children reported having nightmares about climate change (Reuters, March 2, 2020). Certain "green" spokesmen and non-profit groups have admitted to their overheated rhetoric but justify it on grounds that only a widespread sense of panic…
READ FULL BLOG POSTSun Follower
On the symbiotic relationship between humans and sunflowers
By Richard DellOrfano | November 15th 2021 3:43 PMDown the road from my house is a nursery that cultivates sunflowers. I stopped nearby to ponder the hundreds of them, all aligned with the 3:00pm sun in the western sky. They stood like monks at their afternoon psalms, all transfixed by that scintillating altar monstrance representing the Son of…
READ FULL BLOG POSTThe Last Shakers
A visit to a Shaker village farm in Maine -- the last of 21 communities in their 200-year history
By Richard DellOrfano | June 24th 2021 8:21 PMIn the late sixties, I stayed a weekend at a Bruderhof and then hoped to experience the Shaker version of Heaven on Earth that Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Dickens, and Ralph Waldo Emerson had much admired. But I was late by about 100 years, for in 1968 their numbers had dwindled…
READ FULL BLOG POSTNuclear Rearmament
For decades, the popes have called for nuclear disarmament
By James Hanink | September 15th 2020 2:59 PMIn California, where bad things often begin, the papers tell us that we are facing a climate apocalypse. The fires are, indeed, horrific. But there’s no turning back from a true apocalypse. Something closer to a true apocalypse awaits us, and we are currently planning to hasten its arrival. Our…
READ FULL BLOG POSTThem!
Southern California heatwave prompts a thousand ants to swarm home
By Richard DellOrfano | September 11th 2020 2:47 PMGiant mutant ants from atomic weapons-testing in the desert are multiplying faster than we can kill them. They will annihilate our doomed human race within a year. That’s the scenario of the 1950s movie Them! After re-watching this classic film with fascination and horror, I freaked out this morning when…
READ FULL BLOG POSTHis Hidden Signature
The artist does well to copy God’s masterpieces
By Richard DellOrfano | September 3rd 2020 7:59 PMA portrait artist and I were strolling arm in arm at a farmers’ market, when she stopped us to view a display of landscape paintings in a shop window. She knew this local artist and wanted to say hello, so we entered to the tinkling sound of a door bell.…
READ FULL BLOG POSTOur Goldilocks Planet
It's reasonable to assume that Earth is universally unique
By Richard DellOrfano | April 24th 2020 8:38 PMAbout 20 years ago, the children of tenants renting my house pasted glow-in-the-dark stars on the master bedroom ceiling for their parents. When I moved in, I noticed the virtual galaxy the children created. Lying on my bed, I turned off the lamp and looked at the ceiling, surprised and…
READ FULL BLOG POSTLiving Stones
One galaxy "ate" another galaxy
By Richard DellOrfano | April 13th 2020 9:02 PMRecently I read this news clip: “The Andromeda galaxy ate our sister galaxy, and now it’s coming for us.” An astrophysicist used poetic license to describe that star-studded dinner event but it got me thinking. Maybe I need to expand my narrow definition of living things. My biology textbook made…
READ FULL BLOG POSTOur Good Earth
Christian Tradition has always taken a holistic view of life
By David Daintree | February 4th 2020 4:07 PMWe need to remind ourselves sometimes that Christianity is a very materialistic and earthly religion. In our faith there is no necessary conflict between body and spirit; they were not created to be at odds with each other. G.K. Chesterton put it like this:
There are no bad…
READ FULL BLOG POSTTrain Travelogue - Part III
Time for reflection and stimulating conversation
By Richard DellOrfano | November 20th 2019 4:27 PM4:00 PM, Wednesday, April 13, 2011, near Raton, NM We’re approaching 9,000 feet as we climb to Raton. These are the first pine trees we have seen on this trip. I’m beginning to feel some shortness of breath climbing the steep stairs from the rest rooms. It’s an uncomfortable feeling,…
READ FULL BLOG POST"Climate Crisis Lent"
Carbon-phobia is touted over moral and spiritual reforms
By Julianne Wiley (Archive) | March 26th 2019 3:33 PMThis year my parish re-themed Lent to address the Climate CO2 Crisis. It's apparently a "wholesale" international push (by Global Catholic Climate Movement, a "collective" of diocesan offices and international NGOs inspired by Laudato Si and Catholic Climate Covenant, the USCCB-related entity) with local "retail" distributors, embodied in miniature in our…
READ FULL BLOG POSTMy Lenten Garden
Spiritual insights are derived from simple, earthly actions
By Richard DellOrfano | March 8th 2019 4:00 PMMy vegetable garden is a 4 x 10 planter box with gopher-proof screening and a weed-banning cloth. Its soil is enriched with root enzymes and minerals, wriggly worms, and rich humus. I nearly broke my back constructing it, but it was worth the anguish. I’ve got international participation from healthy,…
READ FULL BLOG POSTPostcards for Africa
Attacking a sound-bite straw man only masks the real evil
By Rob Agnelli (Archive) | October 19th 2018 6:35 PMIn a presentation at the Gates Foundation's “Goalkeepers” last month, French President Emmanuel Macron made comments that appeared to be critical of large families: “One of the critical issues of African demography is that this is not chosen fertility... I always say: ‘Present me the woman who decided, being perfectly…
READ FULL BLOG POST