The singers of the Song of Solomon proclaim that “love is stronger than death” (Songs 8:6). It is precisely this quality that makes love what it is. Love is the things that is capable of laying-down its life for the beloved and then rising again.
Read moreAgainst positive vibes
There is something better than being positive, something better which being positive will in fact rob us of: being joyful.
Read moreOn being called by a name, part 3
And this is not just true of people in the scriptures, it’s true of all people (as a matter of fact, its true of all people because the Bible tells us true things about real people). In Les Miserables the answer Jean Valjean receives to his famous song “Who am I?” is in fact the named history of his life; the name transcribed upon him over time: 24601.
Read moreOn being called by a name, part 2
“What is naming?” Walker Percy asks. “Is it an event which we can study as we study other events in natural history, such as solar eclipses, glandular secretions, nuclear fusion, stimulus-response sequences?”
Read moreOn being called by a name, part 1
“Hey you, weirdo!” A stranger hails me.
“My name’s Mark., and don’t call me ‘weirdo’.” I say in response, trying to reclaim my own autonomy. I choose what I am called. I am the namer of me, not this stranger. If I give him the power to name me, to hail me thus, I feel like I forfeit some power. By calling me this way, he enacts a superior position.
Read moreSt Bernard on the kiss
For Bernard the longing of the Christian year at Advent was best expressed in this cry of lovesickness. As we wait for his return, the song of the Bride becomes the song of the church in waiting. “Maranatha, come Lord Jesus!” (1 Cor. 16:22; Rev. 22:20).
Read moreThe beheading of John the Baptist
It is Caravaggio’s greatest work: The Beheading of St. John the Baptist.
Read moreImbalances of power between friends
Christ calls his disciples “friends” and astounds them, for the power relations are steep (Jn. 15:14).
Read moreOne loaf, one cup
When we board a plane we become partakers in a community, a civitas, a polity. We become a kind of loaf. We are bound together, even if only for a time, for better or for worse. We communally share in the crying children, the grouches in row ##, the rolling of the cart down the aisle, the inclement weather.
Read moreCostly and joyful boldness
We live in a culture that imagines itself very parrhesia-ful, very proud and bold. And yet, we aren’t. All of our ostensible boldness and loud proclamation is a kind of veil drawn across the surface of an ever-deepening state of shame and panic. Foucault regards parrhesia as costly speech, a truthfulness that risks the life of the speaker. Contemporary American rhetoric is not parrhesia, for we want the costly speech but not the actual paying of the cost. We like the feeling of speaking truth to Power, but then are surprised when those in power prove just how powerful they are.
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