Song for Melody Gardot

Death Shall Make Life His Dominion

Why I Love No Country

On Charity?
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington DC has declared that they will pull their social services to city residents if the same sex bill, currently being considered by the Washington DC city council, is passed as is. “The city is saying in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that’s really a problem,” said Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the archdiocese. So, essentially, those in the Archdiocese who are making this decision are saying that, contrary to what we might have believed, agape is not unconditional, but dependent on the Archdiocese’s imprimatur of City Council policy. Tell me, where does Christ append

On Nothing: Denys the Aeropagite names the nothing
Aron recently wrote a great post looking at some features of nothingness in the Zen and Christian traditions. People clearly got a little riled up, so I thought I’d stoke the flame a little by throwing Pseudo-Dionysius into the mix. As far as “nothingness” goes, most would probably expect a chunk from the Mystical Theology, but I prefer to pull from The Divine Names for the more systematic questions. In ch 1, Denys lays out the theurgical nature of his project: all of this, he says, ultimately comes down to the incarnational call of the Trinity to us, th

The Gold-Giving Mirror
There was once a mirror in the middle of a large forest. It was said that the mirror would give a never-ending supply of gold to the who one knew the right words to speak to it.  One day a girl and a boy decided that they would not rest – they would not sleep in their beds – until they had figured out those words.  They sat in front of the mirror for days and nights on end and spoke every word and every combination of words they knew.  They spoke nice words and naughty words, smart words and silly words. They yelled, whispered, whistled, and threatened. But the mirror showed no signs of gold.  Soo