An Antidote to Allan Bloom
A recent essay republished at VoegelinView provided an informative critique of Allan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind.[1] I read Bloom’s book twenty years ago. It was…
Dumpster Diving for T.S. Eliot
Last year I wrote of my experience jumping into a school’s dumpster in order to rescue books that had been thrown out for reasons unknown to me.[1]…
Hope in the Midst of Despair and Tragedy: Tomson Highway’s “Permanent Astonishment”
Tomson Highway. Permanent Astonishment. Toronto: Doubleday Canada. 2021. The political and social landscape in Canada was knocked sideways in the spring of 2021 with the locating…
Being Called Beyond the Wall
The Four Wise Men. Michel Tournier (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1997). The gospel stories are about movement—Jesus comes to a town, crosses to the…
Raimon Panikkar’s Christophany: Living in the Pilgrimage of Incarnation
Raimon Panikkar (1918-2010) was a Catholic Priest with family roots in Spain and India. He was an accomplished scholar in a variety of fields who was comfortable…
Turning From the Shadows: John Masefield’s Everlasting Mercy
The Everlasting Mercy. John Masnfield. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015. While completing Master’s work in the mid 1990’s, I befriended an older Rastafarian from Jamaica. When…
Dumpster Diving for Cicero
Five years ago, an institution of learning in my neighborhood began to throw out perfectly fine books. Works from Shakespeare to Tolkien to Wyndham were tossed from…
Conservatives, Progressives, and Cancellers in The Time of Babel
I read an essay on Voegelinview questioning whether “conservatives” have the capacity to be “progressive.” [1] The essay made me wonder about the words we use in…
A Review of Richard Wright’s Black Boy
There are a number of reasons to read Richard Wright’s Black Boy.[1] One is that it is a fascinating, well written autobiography of an American life. Another…
The Catcher in the Rye and the Problem of Alienation
Political Philosopher Eric Voegelin refers occasionally to the ancient Egyptian poem, “Dispute of a Man Who Contemplates Suicide With His Soul.” The “Dispute” is about a “man…
A Journal of the Plague Year
A Journal of the Plague Year. Daniel Defoe. New York: Penguin Classics, 2003. In light of the COVID 19 virus now spreading around the world, it…
Up In the Air
Many of us live in isolation from one another. We commute alone in our own cars, we entertain ourselves with television and computer screens, and shop for…
True Grit (2010)
A bible verse from Proverbs 28:1 sets the stage for this movie, “The wicked man flees although no one pursues him . . .” The tale of…