I Am Not Hamlet

If you haven't celebrated Christmas by now, you're not likely to start. Conversely, you don't have to quite let it go yet. Fight the ahistoricity! It's a feast of twelve days and depending on how you count, this is eleven or Epiphany Eve. In the Christian East, tonight is the vigil of Theophany. Theophany/Epiphany are two different sides of the same coin. East vs. West The West honors the Magi--who represent all of us goyim--and the miracle at the wedding at Cana (water for wine, anyone?) The East honors Jesus' baptism, and in more minor ways his circumcision and the Magi, too. It's all about a manifestation, a revealing, a shining forth. The Trinity is revealed (at the baptism), salvation is revealed to all the world (the Magi), the start of Jesus' public ministry (Cana). Just as the Incarnation honors all bodies, as the Son suddenly was born with one, so Theophany honors all the Earth's waters. Paralleling the Jewish Festival ...

I have yet to complete my multi-year meditations on the twelve days of Christmas (I didn't write any last year--one of the worst years of my life) but here I am with number TEN! Courtesy Creative Commons The Christmas decorations may be put away now--at work they are definitely down. There is only the leftover and marked down Christmas branded merchandise at stores. Corpses of Christmas trees are laid at curbs like rejected sacrifices. And yet...Christmas isn't done with you yet. If you'll allow it, you can savor it for two more nights. Forget the artificial deadlines of the culture. Christmas is stronger and more joyous than the Wal-Marts of the world--though at times, admit it, you've thought Christmas has been swallowed by economics. Think of teachers, especially the good ones, and ask St. Elizabeth Ann Seton to pray for them. Think of the ranks of your friends and then ruminate on the 70 Apostles--the next concentric ring outside the non-anonymous 12...

My mother died this past August.  If any of my extended family reads this they'll instantly accuse me of trying to score pity points for myself. I'm not. If you have no sympathy for me over the passing of my mother...so be it.  I'm not going to plead for it.  I'm just stating the fact, that she like Jacob Marley, is as dead as a doornail. It happens to the best of us. Anyway, in the course of my mother's rapid decline and passing, I was disowned by two members of my family. Were we fighting over who gets Mom's treasures?  No.  Were we vicious because we each thought we deserved the lion's share of the inheritance?  Hardly. No, my family went batshit crazy over the way I processed her death. Courtesy of Creative Commons That's it.  No revelations of family secrets.  No bickering over cash, cars, or mansions. Nope.  It was because of my less-than- polished  bourgeois way of expression. I was cursed (literally!) a...

Again, this link is a month old.  Yet, I have to say I'm quite proud of this piece and feel the faint rumblings (or is that simply gas?) of a book.  Time will tattle, I suppose.  Anyway, tell me what you think of this piece.  Subscribe to Stand Magazine while you're at it. Love Is Action from the Stand Magazine blog.

This post is almost two months old, but life gets in the way of our plans, doesn't it?  Anyway, a friend of mine is starting a men's magazine (No! Not that kind of magazine.)   Stand: the magazine for men who give a damn is taking subscriptions for the inaugural issue.  Consider subscribing and checking it out here . I wrote a blog piece about, what else?, local ecology. You can find that piece here . Enjoy!

I wrote this review for the Englewood Review of Books back in December, but it was only published a few weeks ago.   Not God's Type is the story of an atheist's journey to theism, then to Evangelical Christianity and finally to Catholicism.  It wasn't bad. Follow this link to the review.

I've written a fair amount of book reviews--a few of which weren't even self-published--and now, after my master's project has been circulated a bit, I have a third-party review of it!  Best of all, it's favorable.  You can read the review here .  If you'd like to get a copy, simply go to www.noisetrade.com and look up Greening God's Earth.  You can get it for free or leave a tip to help continue the work. Thanks again to the Englewood Review of Books for the review. Courtesy Creative Commons