What We’re Reading

John Milton, Paradise Lost. The greatest epic of the English language, Milton’s Paradise Lost is a grand tapestry of humanity caught in the storm clouds of the divine battle between God and Satan. However, a closer inspection of the language Milton uses reveals his theology of the passions: greed, envy, hatred, and jealousy emanating from a fallen Satan who is often cowardly in the face of his angelic and divine opposition; and the love, compassion, and serenity of God which rubs off on a prelapsarian Adam and Eve, “the lovliest pair / That ever since in loves imbraces met.” Paradise Lost is really the battle within us, the turbulent contest of the passions of hate and the passions of love, the passions which make a “hell within [us]” or allow us to find a “paradise within [us].” Let us not fall into the temptation of sympathy for the devil, for too much sympathy causes us, like Milton’s Satan, to look upon the beauty and goodness of this world and all relationships with “grief,” “envy,” and “jealously” which become the thieves of joy. “O Hell! what do mine eyes with grief behold…”

~ Paul Krause

Ben Johnson, “A Victorian Christmas.” Before 1837 in Great Britain, commonly known Christmas traditions today like Santa Claus, Christmas cards, caroling, and gift giving did not exist. It is truly because of Queen Victoria and the Victorians that we have these timeless Christmas traditions. The rapid development of wealth and industrialization mixed in with Charles Dickens and The Christmas Carol encouraged wealthy Victorians to practice gift giving by redistributing their wealth to the poor and needy. As part of their gift, these same Victorians who owned factories then gave the working middle-class two days off on Christmas and Boxing Day, allowing many to visit their families abroad by train. If you were lucky, you could even sneak toys manufactured by the factories into your children’s stocking, rather than placing nuts and fruits, a poor Victorian tradition. Children were elated to know Father Christmas/Saint Nicolas provided these presents on Christmas morn with his reindeer and sleigh and placed underneath a tree, which began when a tree was erected in Windsor castle. These Christmas traditions may seems illy to us now, considering we practice them in some capacity every year, but turkey, family pictures, crackers, and carols all stem from the Victorians. Without the Industrial Revolution, many of our Christmas traditions around the world would not exist.

~ Sarah Tillard

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