The Word

St. John declares that words make us human. That words, even, make us exist. It is words, and not pictograms or tools or logic or emotions. And so St. John is the patron saint of writers. I mean St. John the Evangelist, theoretical author of what is known as John’s gospel. I don’t know or […]

Splitting Hairs

This week I was reading about the Arian controversy. These nuts in the 4th century spent years and years trying to firmly ascertain whether Jesus, the sorta founder of their religion, was a human or a God or a Godlike thing. The cutest part of the debate was the way the poor Holy Spirit was […]

A Good Seed

I was running way late because I had spent too much time with Katharine Hepburn. Her autobiography. (Which, as you would expect, isn’t at all afraid of zinger fragments and movie-script-style stabs at exposing a slice of her story. Spencer Tracy and Howard Hughes included, no extra charge.) And I really, really didn’t want to […]

… in a Box.

I was disappointed to learn that the pope is not keeping God in a box at the Vatican. Or if he is, that it was not part of the tour. I didn’t realize it until I had been there, but my half-Catholic blood is always secretly hoping that the Catholics have a direct line to […]