Robert D. Richardson Jr.'s, Thoreau: A Life of the Mind (1987), is an thoroughly researched and amazingly rich biography of the man who, for many, is mainly known as living a semi-solitary two years on property owned by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walden pond, and offering up, as a product of this living experiment, the … Continue reading On Thoreau and His Reading
"They say, ninety-one years old, it can't be helped. Almost they don't care, he's so old." These words appear on the first page of Autumn Light: Season of Fire and Farewells. They are the words of Hiroko, Pico Iyer's wife, who calls him from Japan to tell him her father is dying. When we think … Continue reading A Meditation on Dying — Autumn Light: Season of Fire and Farewells by Pico Iyer
I often find myself struggling to understand what love is, and how I can love so that I might live fully what Christ told us was the greatest commandment, to love God with all our heart and to love our neighbor like ourselves. How do we show love to one another? St. Paul’s First Letter … Continue reading The Love of Our Neighbor
In the second half of Simone Weil's, Waiting for God, there are several extensive essays on the love of God. While the first essay on school studies might seem out of place; it is in keeping with her main focus, but approached from the point of view of our love for God, rather than God's … Continue reading Part II: Simone Weil on School Studies in_Waiting for God_ (The Essays)
This Easter I was praying at home -- typically I would be traveling back and forth to church during the Triduum, starting with the foot washing on Holy Thursday and ending with the Saturday vigil. I would be singing, sitting still, looking around to see who I knew and trying to maintain a sense of … Continue reading Part I: The Way of Simone Weil: _Waiting For God_(The Letters)
