Safe Haven

I guess I'll tell you my gripes with Crisis magazine: the whole thing sounds like a Rod Dreher fever dream. You would think that armies of drag queens were kidnapping children to take them to the infamous Story Hour, in some kind of right-wing dystopian novel that is the reverse of The Handmaid's Tale. Come on, man. In other news, I would like to congratulate the Democrats, on seemingly finding some semblance of an economic message. You know, I'm old enough to remember when they actually were the party of the working class; it seemed like there for a while, they were the party of debt-ridden upper-class English majors, complaining because their slice of the pie lacks cherry sauce. [Wait, aren't they still those people?--ed.] Too soon. Anyway, I am what they used to call a "social conservative". And to be clear, I am not a social conservative for the sake of winning an election; I really believe and try to do the things that I say in this regard. Someone, howev...

 I was praying with the Scriptures yesterday, and I'm going to tell you something that hasn't even made it in my prayer journal yet. But I was hanging out with John, in the first chapter of his Gospel. I started from the top, figuring that God and I would talk about something majestic in the prologue. There's a lot in there; it stands to reason that you could spend some time meditating on anything in there. But no, the Holy Spirit didn't want to talk about the prologue. I kept reading, and then I came to this: "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" John the Baptist sees Jesus here, and points Him out to his own disciples. It's often right to understand that "behold" in the Scriptures as something like we would say, "Look!" This stopped me in my tracks this time, because Jesus was saying, "Don't you understand? I am still for you." Christ walking around, Christ healing people, Christ teaching his dis...

 John le Carre is becoming one of my favorite authors. His character George Smiley--memorably portrayed by Sir Alec Guinness in two celebrated miniseries for the BBC--is supposed to be a more realistic version of a British spy, in contrast to Ian Fleming's James Bond. Sir Oliver Lacon is an assistant to the Cabinet minister in charge of national intelligence. Lacon is the bureaucrat no one in the intelligence service likes, because his job is to keep an eye on especially domestic political implications of intelligence. He usually limits what the pros want to do, for some political consideration. He's amiable, but unprincipled, and ambitious. I think what le Carre loves to do is have his protagonists wrestle between their idealism, their patriotism, and pragmatism. Tonight, I fell asleep in Lacon's living room, so to speak. When I woke up, everyone was still in Sir Oliver's living room! I love these Cold War stories. My sympathy for the West is undimmed, despite my ambiv...

 The papal encyclical, "Fratelli tutti", or, "On the Fraternity and Social Friendship," was promulgated today, and may be accessed here . I'll read it completely, before offering any comments.