I get a kick out of those “militant feminists” who, while being supported by wealthy husbands, lecture their single, self-supporting sisters about the need to overthrow the patriarchy.
ANGELUS NEWS
A DREAM COME TRUE: MIGRANTS AND THE KINGDOM OF GOD
Since the dawn of human history, Father Alessandrini notes, humans have been on the move: driven by threats, curiosity, the search for food, and any number of other forces. Migration, he notes, could be “interpreted as a restless longing for a fulfilling final experience.”
AN INTERVIEW WITH–ME!
I put everything that interests me to use, one way or the other: martyrs, cults, women’s tennis, Scottish otter keepers, heroin-addicted jazz singers, cloistered nuns, serial murderers.
THE HIDDEN LIFE OF TREES
Sick members of the community are nursed and nourished; it’s as if trees, too, exist as part of a Mystical Body. So strong is the instinct toward collective health that a kind of equalizing principle is at work, whereby more robust trees work to strengthen the weak.
J’ACCUSE!: ON SNITCH CULTURE
It’s as if the secular culture, with neither God nor theology, has come up on its own with a twisted notion of the Fall whereby half of humanity is by its nature violent, greedy, hateful and irredeemable; and the other half is by its nature sinless, pure, gentle and blameless, and therefore needs no redeeming.
THE FREE WORLD
“[Louis] Menand himself seems not much to admire any of them. Is he saying that, given an unlimited amount of freedom, this somewhat uninspiring group—the way he paints it, anyway—is the best that post-WWII Western civilization was been able to produce?”
THE GUARDIANS OF MY DESK
Christ had a soft spot for people who stepped out from the crowd: the one leper out of ten who said thank you, the blind man who cried “Have pity on me!”, Zacchaeus in his sycamore tree.
ZAPOTEC MASTER WEAVER PORFIRIO GUTIÉRREZ
“I do not work with natural dyes simply because I was born into the tradition, or because there is money to be made, or because it is a trend. I work with natural dyes because I discovered my gift and calling within our traditional practice and developed a profound connection with Mother Earth.”
RESURRECTING THE DEAD: ART FROM DEATH ROW
Living in Oklahoma in 1999, Green would read in the morning paper of executions that had taken place the night before, including descriptions of the prisoner’s clothing and last meal. “Comfort food,” she thought. “It humanized Death Row for me…I related to that inmate.”
OJAI’S BEST-KEPT SECRET: TAFT GARDENS AND NATURE PRESERVE
I felt as if I were a guest at some exotic villa where the owner had discreetly left me to explore and marvel on my own. If I’d had any idea of the range and distinction of this one-of-a-kind horticultural haven, I would have scheduled my day so as to to spend way longer.
HEAVEN IS OUR HOME
Don’t get me wrong. All three homes were wondrous. I wouldn’t have missed them for the world. Still, I couldn’t help reflecting afterwards that the effort to preserve in amber any human life carries a touch of the absurd.
BLONDELL CUMMINGS: DANCE AS MOVING PICTURES
Jubilant, earthy, celebratory, mischievous, she invites us to see the dance “inside” our most homely tasks, chores, and daily activities. Layered through her soundtracks are oral histories; whispered, overheard and remembered conversations through open windows or over the kitchen table. Throughout her careers, she collaborated with avant-garde musicians and writers.
STANDING STILL
“So, could you not watch with me for one hour?” asked Christ of Peter in the Garden at Gethsemane. It’s one of the most poignant lines in the Gospels.
NATIONAL BIRD: THE TRAUMA OF DRONE WARFARE
Seconds after the strike, the shooters realize “something is weird”: they weren’t able to PID (positively identify) a single weapon among those they’d just blown to smithereens.