Saturday Good Reads

Another week, another mass killing. And another. The reaction from the news media is predictable. In fact, the reactions from everyone are predictable. Blame guns. Blame Trump. Blame social media. Blame video games. Blame marijuana. The real causes, however, are deeper, and until we come to grips with that, nothing else is going to help much. Thane Bellamo at The Federalist points to what these deeper causes are. We may not like the truth, but it’s staring us in the face. 

I took Latin in high school, and it taught me a lot about language and English. Even way back then, it was considered a dying language – in a high school of 2,100 students, we had 10 in Latin I and five in Latin II. So, you might think Latin really couldn’t engender any controversy. And you would be wrong. Ian Mosely at Mere Orthodoxy writes about Latin for Politics: When the World of Spoken Latin Goes Woke.

Amy Medina remembers the summer she turned 16, and her father told her she was getting a job. We all know how much 16-year-olds love what their parents tell them to do. But she did it, and she learned something vitally important. See “You Were Right, Dad.”

Poetry

On the Anniversary of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Birth – Daniel Leach at The Imaginative Conservative. 

Westminster Abbey – Catherine Morgan at Catherine’s Letters.

The Birthday Boy – David Mason at The Hudson Review.

Faith

God Created Family to Picture His Truth – Tim Challies.

Picking Up the Pieces – Sarah Houser at Coffee + Crumbs.

Culture

The Problem with Individualizing Truth – Zak Schmoll at Entering the Public Square.

Republican, Catholic – and a Union Man – Rod Dreher at American Conservative.

NASA, Woodstock and The Search for Identity – Stephen McAlpine.

American Stuff

Yellow Fever and Reconciliation – Sean Michael Chick at Emerging Civil War. 

The 400^thAnniversary (of slavery) – Thomas Kidd at The Gospel Coalition.

Writing and Literature

Middle-Earth: A World with Purpose – Zak Schmoll at Rebuilding Hollin.

Curiosity's Lure from Dante to Moby Dick – Brendan Case at Church Life Journal.

Why Write Medieval Mysteries? – Priscilla Royal at English Historical Fiction Authors.

The Best One-Star Reviews of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment – Dwyer Murphy at CrimeReads.

The Beating Heart of Jerusalem

Painting: Portrait of a Young Man Reading, watercolor by Henry Scott Tuke (1858-1929).