Rare is the Romantic Relationship that Doesn’t Keep a Record of Wrongs
An Exhausting Valentine’s Day c/o the “Religious Cards Section”
It Isn’t by Our Own Strength that We Love One Another, but in Shared Weaknesses
Damaged Goods, Law/Gospel Confusion, and the Elusive Meaning of Love
A Lot of the Church’s Counsel on Marriage Perpetuates the Problem by Repeating Law
The Unintentional Theology of Rites of Spring, Or, The Gospel According to Guy Picciotto
“I’ve Found the Answer Lies in a Real Emotion / Not the Self-Indulgence of a Self-Devotion”
Seculosity and St. Paul
David Zahl didn’t put me up to this, I swear. But if the Apostle Paul were alive today, I dare say he would have written Seculosity. Let me explain. The secular world in which we live now wouldn’t have been imaginable to the Apostle Paul. In the first century, everything one did was connected to […]
Another Week Ends: Bad Romance, Marriage Therapy, Shania Twain, First Date at Denny’s, Techno Tyranny, and the Paradox of Control
1. In high school, a friend of mine found a single rose waiting for her on each of her desks for six classes in a row; she was later offered yet another six roses and asked to the prom via guitar-serenade. The routine was sweet but seemed a little familiar, as if from a movie. […]
What Is Love?
What is love? Love has no ego. Love and ego are antithetical. Diametrically opposed to one another. Foreign languages one to another. Ego equally has no love but is all pretense and self-preservation. This quote from Law and Gospel: A Theology for Sinners (and Saints) summarizes this well: We have a whole secondary self we put […]
Insanity, Marriage, and the Virgin Mary
I couldn’t let this day pass without posting my favorite passage from Alain de Botton’s The Course of Love, in which our favorite Swiss pop-philosopher/religious atheist hints at the appeal of ‘true religion’ under the guise of abreactive art and in the process gives us a crash, er, course on grace in relationships. It comes […]
You Know You’re Ready to Get Married When…
A few more quotes from Alain de Botton’s wonderful new book, The Course of Love, all taken from the penultimate chapter where he outlines what it might look like to be “Ready for Marriage”: Pronouncing a lover “perfect” can only be a sign that we have failed to understand them. We can claim to have […]
The Tom Haverford Guide to Online Dating (and Arranged Marriages)
Don’t know where I’ve been, but comedian Aziz Ansari, AKA the artist formerly known as Tom Haverford, has a book coming out next week, his first. Instead of a stand-up routine on paper, he’s done something unexpected, teaming up with a sociologist named Eric Klinenberg to pen something on the state of Modern Romance. Time […]
Another Week Ends: Abrahamic Evolution, More Cookie Monster, The Law of Higher Ed, G.K. Chesterton as Saint, and the Puritan Legacy
1. Over at aeon, Benjamin Grant Purzycki once again demonstrates the poverty of discourse about religion – the fact that little understanding of its required to make grand pronouncements. Anyway, he says some interesting things along the way, and it’s worth a read. First, we’re all biased toward thinking of God as a cosmic judge: In a […]
