Christopher Hitchens’s brother, Peter, says it was two paintings that challenged his atheist convictions. He found the contrast between beauty and ugliness suggestive of larger issues of good and evil. Peter and Christopher were raised by the same parents only a few years apart. They attended the same boarding school and saw the same hypocrisy....
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If you never had an emo phase, you missed out. You have to face pain and name suffering and see it in yourself. It’s part of growing up. For some it’s a Nirvana stage. I asked some high schoolers recently if the Nirvana stage is still a thing. They told me some kids still wear...
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My favorite recording of my favorite Louis Armstrong tune, “Struttin’ With Some Barbecue,” features the great trumpeter Byron Stripling and his friends. They bring that great jazz masterpiece[i] to life in ways that would make Louis smile that great big grin of his. As jazz performances frequently go, this one begins with the entire ensemble...
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Alongside the eggnog, the tree, the decorations and gifts, and the ringing of the Salvation Army collection, most of us associate Christmas with the music. Indeed, Christmas carols are some of the very richest of all Christian hymns and music, packed with deep reflections on the coming of the mystery of the ages, how God...
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We long to be loved and we long to love, all of us. And while we sometimes get it more right than not, sometimes we fail miserably, wounding ourselves and others. The desire for intimacy is so deep we will do the most glorious and the most ruinous things, hoping that someone somewhere will want...
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Ordo Caritatis. Some words and ideas are worth holding onto, especially ones that take us to deeper places of the heart, that ask us harder questions of the heart— and even more, ones that offer the hope that all is not lost, and that our fragmented selves can be reordered, that we can be made...
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