[Arrival]
The doorway yawns to make a passage for the lad,
a gate op’ning out upon the chairs and stove whereat
Zjemlya kisses Ouranos and mythicals the sofas,
the chrism’s song-fragrance mingling with th’ aromas
that curl ’round the door-posts, and anchor them; for brokenness
shall sleep offstage,
and build its cage
later. Continue reading
There have been no posts this week, as I am taking a break while I finish up finals-related things. I expect to be back to posting by the end of this next week.
In the meantime, I thought it would be worthwhile to share a recent re-post of a 2012 article from R. Joseph Hoffmann’s site inspired by a then-recent 2012 Huffpost article by Jacques Berlinerblau, who wrote a book on secularism. In the video Berlinerblau made and attached to his Huffpost article, he says briefly:
Secularism is a political idea about Church and State relations. It is not a metaphysical idea about the existence or non-existence of God.
The book on secularism spells this political element out more fully (or so goes the video he made for the Amazon.com page, which cites from his book): Continue reading
Windowsills droop,
walls, tired, sigh;
I know this sky,
here it bends nigh,
my feet and thighs
have roots
here.
A maelstrom of toxins marches
inward from the periphery:
you are vigilant with science
and slash with superstition
at their watery bellies. Continue reading
As they work their way through the seminal figures of Western history, introductory courses on Philosophy continue to include Augustine of Hippo, sandwiching him between Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, who each lived from seven-to-eight-hundred years from him in either chronological direction. One of the principal difficulties in engaging with Augustine on some of the classical loci of philosophy, however, is that he does not always have works dedicated to these topics. On these matters, one must glean his position from other works. Augustine’s position on political philosophy is one such subject. Thankfully, Robert A. Markus’ Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine, Revised Edition (New York: Cambridge, 2007) goes a long way towards filling this vacuum.
Into the Clarities 