The Narthex

Many readers may be familiar with the term Anthropocene. It denotes an epoch of geological time during which human influence on the environment has become pronounced. Geologists, who apparently like to work as slowly as the processes they study, have, after laborious deliberation, largely rejected the use of Anthropocene as…

In Part 3 we looked at Pugin’s St. John the Baptist “Hospital,” Alton Castle, and Lodging for Stonemasons, all in Alton, as the first of Pugin’s built works that evidenced the social vision in his Contrasts. We continue. Pugin’s Home (“The Grange”) and St. Augustine’s Abbey Church, Ramsgate (1843-44) Pugin…

Before proceeding to the Block Universe Controversy, I’ll give some background material to make time, as a variable in space-time, intelligible in the context of relativity theory. If the reader finds sections of this article too challenging, please skim those sections but be sure to read the final section…

"For in him we live and move and have our being" is a stunning truth. It comes to us from Epimenides, the legendary ancient Greek poet. St. Paul cites it in his Mars Hill sermon to the searching and often skeptical Athenians (see Acts 17:28). The idiosyncratic Bishop George Berkeley…

Monosodium glutamate, or MSG, was in just about everything at the Chinese restaurants I went to growing up. The idea of MSG is that it enhances, or is supposed to, the flavors already present in the dishes being prepared. A Japanese scientist named Ikeda Kikunae discovered MSG more than a…

Freedom fails when citizens demand the benefits of ordered liberty while refusing the virtue that gives liberty its moral spine. Our present disorder should surprise only those who believed a republic could survive after the home stopped forming conscience, the school stopped teaching wisdom, and the church was politely invited…

Yesterday I was absorbed in listening to Antonín Dvořák's Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104. It was the 1970 studio version, with Jacqueline du Pré as soloist and her husband, Daniel Barenboim, conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. There is also a famous live version from 1968, performed as a…

"A theory is the more impressive the greater the simplicity of its premises, the more different kinds of things it relates, and the more extended its area of applicability. Therefore the deep impression that classical thermodynamics made upon me. It is the only physical theory of…

Having concluded my discussion of Pugin’s Contrasts in Part 2, we turn to a group of Pugin sketches labeled “topographical drawings.” They are “topographical” in the dictionary meaning of “the study or description of the configuration of any object.” They are neither products of Pugin’s imagination nor his plans for…

Wearing a wire was a staple of the old crime shows on television. A ne’er-do-well who had turned state’s witness would agree to have a recording device taped to his chest or secreted in his clothes. Then he would meet some other bad guys in a cheap hotel room, recording…

The New York Times likes occasionally to run articles about “gray divorce,” i.e., the phenomenon of people 50+ splitting up. Case in point: its approving commentary on June 22, “Older Adults Are No Longer Staying in ‘Empty-Shell’ Marriages” (linked below). It reads, "[N]early 40 percent of divorces today occur between…

The grand narrative of human space flight to the planet Mars stretches across my entire life, woven together by a bizarre chain of historical and personal milestones. As a child, I loved munching on the original Mars candy bars. They were wrapped in glittering foil that caught the sunlight like…

"What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know." -- St. Augustine of Hippo

At 96 I sometimes view time as an enemy, not a friend. So…

I continue my discussion of Pugin’s Contrasts. The operative word in the full title of Contrasts is noble. Pugin showed his readers illustrations of medieval buildings designed to comport with the nobility, the dignity, of the human beings who resided in them and worked in them. But he did not…

“Even all the hairs of your head are counted” (Mt 10:30). The above verse about the divine follicle census appeared in Sunday’s Gospel. It shows up in the middle of a larger passage about proper perspectives on fear. Human beings are often afraid and, in many cases, they should be.…