Is all love just a kind of narcissism?

September 14, 2026 Mark Brians

*p/c Ferdinand Schmutzer (1870–1928), public domain, courtesy of wikimedia commons*

Sigmund Freud did not believe in love —did not believe that humans were capable of it. “He insisted that it was the illusory result of a narcissistic passion for one’s own I, or rather, one’s own narcissistic ideal” Mossimo Recalcati explains (2021, p.9).

Freud, according to Recalcati, “believed that to love means nothing more than to adore one’s own ideal image embodied by the beloved” (ibid). Thus when someone says “I love you” what Freud believed was actually going-on was nothing more the person declaring “‘I love myself through you’” (ibid).

Now, enough of us have experienced the brokenness of sin to know that this is sometimes true…

The corpse of Pinocchio

September 8, 2026 Mark Brians

There’s a critical piece to the ending of Collodi’s original tale of Pinocchio which has been left out of every version I ever encountered. It’s not in the Golden Books version nor in the Disney cartoon version. Today I read the end of Collodi’s original (M. Murray trans., New York: E.P. Dutton, 1956) and was absolutely stunned by it. It goes like this…

"If it be sweet dare you not try its taste?"

September 1, 2026 Mark Brians

*Jacques Fénoux as Hippolytus in the Comédie-Française production of Phèdre. Photograph by Atelier Nadar. Pubic Domain courtesy of wikimedia commons*.

Theramenes’ advice (above) is —like most folly— spun in threads of silvery truths. He is encouraging his master, Hippolytus, to follow his growing affection for Aricia, the foreign princess which his father (king Theseus) holds captive in the palace.

Hippolytus has grown to love her and she him, though their peoples are at war. One can imagine a montage in which the two of them sing “…there may be something there that wasn’t there before…” from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (1991).

Main theme from an unpreached homily for the Feast of Mary

August 17, 2026 Mark Brians

Our service was cancelled yesterday due to inclement weather and damages sustained by the facility we used.

This means the notes which I had prepared for the homily lay in unpreached, wedged where I left them, folded and stuffed in the margin between the beginning of the Gospel of Luke (on the left-hand side of the page) and the account of Mary visitation to Elizabeth (on the right-hand side)…

What to do when The Lord's Service is cancelled due to inclement weather, in brief

August 16, 2026 Mark Brians

The suspension of the Lord’s Service, the absence of holy fellowship and holy communion, are indeed things we can miss. “Ah mercy, Lord, have mercy, I’m gonna really feel the sting of not having church today…” is a right and meet way to feel. But….

A brief note on the Feast of Mary

August 10, 2026 Mark Brians

The Feast of the Mother of Our Lord is a time each year where we honor the women in our community and glorify the God who said "it is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18).

During this cycle of days we remember the promise given to the Woman that her child would rise up to crush the Serpent (Genesis 3:15). We celebrate in victory all of the serpent-crushing seed-bearing women in the Bible who were types and shadows of things to come. A few examples include…

So many donkeys

August 4, 2026 Mark Brians

Particularly Stuart was expounding to us why there are so many donkeys in the book of Judges. It was, strangely now that I think of it, a thought that had never really struck me with any severity. “Man alive,” I said, “you’re right, there are a ton of donkeys in Judges… actually in the books of Samuel too!”

“Exactly!” Stuart said, a strangely luminous twinkle in his eye, “that’s exactly right.”

Here’s his theory in brief… well, and I’ve expanded a few places (confession: I’m convinced, it’s donkeys all over the place)…

My solemn charge to the '26-'27 Theopolis 'Normie' Fellows

July 28, 2026 Mark Brians

At the opening reception at the beginning of the start of each summer term it is customary for the director to give a ‘solemn charge.’ This summer, as the new director, it was my duty to do so. What follows is the text from that charge.

At Theopolis we have two fellows programs: the music program, titled magnificently “The Te Deum Program” and our flagship program, the -erm- normal fellows program. On Sunday you we will welcome in our glad company the Te Deum students, and you will find yourselves referred to by myself, the faculty, the liturgist, our kitchen team affectionately as the “Normie fellows” or simply as “normies.”

By the gazelles

July 20, 2026 Mark Brians

There is a warning in the Song of Solomon: “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and by the does of the field, do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires” (Songs 2:7).

If we are not careful it is easy to render these words of counsel from the bride as a warning, “be careful!… not too much love now… take it easy before you commit…. romantic desire is a hazardous thing… ‘kiss dating goodbye’” …etc.

And while there is certainly wisdom in not being reckless in romance…

Prelude to missing my family and my church for two weeks

July 7, 2026 Mark Brians

On Saturday I will leave these beloved islands for two weeks. I am thankful to say I will miss my family and my church very deeply, it’ll tear my heart out. I shall not be able to bear it.

It will slay me every morning to awake in a house outside of Birmingham where the halls don’t echo with children’s feet running at 5:30 am, and enter into a kitchen where milk (or something worse) has not already been spilt (at least twice), and sit down to a quiet dining room to sip hot coffee while I wait for the van to leave for 3rd Presbyterian…

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