A few feet away from the doors of my parish church, I was attempting to park my car in a tight space. Suddenly I heard shouts from behind the vehicle, followed by angry beatings of fists on my car’s trunk. Clearly, some guy was irate at me.
When I got out of the car and looked back, I saw the fellow still flushed with anger. He accused me of being a blind driver who did not know what he was doing.
On a recent weekend evening, my wife Susan and I approached the door of the Dolphin, one of our favorite restaurants, only to find it held open for us by a young man accompanied by a young woman. They were ahead of us and, once inside, stood waiting, like us, for a table.
“Corrigan told me once that Christ was quite easy to understand. He went where He was supposed to go. He stayed where He was needed. He took little or nothing along, a pair of sandals, a bit of a shirt, a few odds and ends to stave off loneliness. He never rejected the world. If he had rejected it, He would have been rejecting mystery. And if He rejected mystery, He would have been rejecting faith.”
Quotation from Let the Great World Spin, a novel written by Colum McCann
When your God-damn atheists become as dogmatic as some religionists, you know we're in trouble.
Thank you, Dawkins, Hitchens and your fellow evangelists of atheism.
“Search for Escapee Continues.” This newspaper headline led into the story of a convict from Arizona who had fled prison and, as of this writing, has not yet been found. Driving with a woman believed to be his accomplice the man has continued successfully to elude police.
Like the headline writer and most other people, you may find no problem with the sentence that introduces the story. I do, however, because I believe the word escapee to be misused.
William Powers, author of the new book Hamlet’s Blackberry, is a journalist who lives and works on Cape Cod. He and his wife, both writers, are used to working at home.
Powers values his computer and the technology he uses. Like so many other writers, he relies on a panoply of electronic devices.
Some time ago, however, he and his wife realized that their communication technology, with all the possibilities it offered, was taking over their family life. Their young son was shortchanged in the process because his parents were less available to him than they wanted to be.
For decades, this woman had personified New York style and philanthropy. Her late husband’s name belonged to the city’s earliest history. At 105 years of age, she might have been expected to live in old age securely if not serenely.
Brooke Astor’s social standing, however, did not protect her from the same crime that many another old woman (and man) undergoes. She was robbed of her wealth by a member of her own family.