Saturday, February 22, 2020

Saturday Good Reads


Browsing through some of your old textbooks (in my case, really old textbooks) can offer some surprises. I have a few from college and two from high school, and the college texts have markups in the margins that I recognize as my own handwriting. Kelly Belmonte was looking through a textbook on 17th century British literature, and discovered she still remembered a poem by George Herbert she had memorized

What’s old is new again. I had seen a few references, or people muttering, about secession sentiment in various states – Oregon, Illinois, California, New York, and Virginia. What seemed to give the muttering a bit of a push was 91 of the 95 counties in Virginia declaring themselves “sanctuaries” for gun ownership rights – that anything the new Democratic legislature did to restrict gun ownership rights would not be enforced. That led to a large demonstration in Richmond, which apparently was significant enough for several Democratic senators to vote against a gun restriction bill. Then West Virginia’s governor offered to accept the Virginia counties into his state, something of a reversal of when West Virginia broke off from Virginia during the Civil War. 

We may think this is all highly amusing, but the culture wars seem to be entering a new phase. John Devanny at The Imaginative Conservative writes about Virginia’s new secession crisis, and Valerie Richardson at the Washington Times considers the new secession sentiment taking hold

Tim Challies lost his father last year and discovered that grief isn’t a one-time thing. Read his lessons learned through grief.

Writing and Literature

The Mystical Vision of G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown – Sean Johnson at Forma Review.

“Travels with Charley”: America as Experiment – Rick Wilcox at Literary Life.

Beowulf: The Mound and the Dragon – Mark Patton at English Historical Fiction Authors.

Poetry

Red-throated wryneck – Joe Spring at Joe Spring Writes.

“The Gravel Walks” by Seamus Heaney – read by Amanda Holmes at The American Scholar.

Everlasting Youth: The callow genius of Percy Bysse Shelley – Algis Valiunas at The Claremont Review of Books.

Culture

The Power of Guilt – Mark Loughbridge at Gentle Reformation.

Fidel was Robin Hood. Fidel was a Monster – Karen Alea at Narratively.

Pathmaking, Forgetfulness, and the Recovery of Memory – Drew Miller at The Rabbit Room.

To Anyone Who Thinks Christianity is Hateful or Bigoted – Bruce Ashford at Lifeway Voices.

Why Are There So Few Christians in Academia? – Thomas Kidd at The Gospel Coalition.

Faith

Can I Walk by Faith if My Faith is Small? – Michele Morin at Living Our Days.




News Media


Trump and Sanders vs. the Elites – Jesse Sumpter at CrossPolitic Studios. 

Fields of Gold – Sting (1993)


Painting: A Seated Old Man Reading, oil on canvas by Jacques-Henri Sablet (1749-1803).

1 comment:

Michele Morin said...

Honored to be included in the Good!