Category Archives: Philosophy

Republic of Letters

How Rush Kept Me Alive | The American Conservative

To say that the album changed my life would be a trite understatement. It radically altered my understanding of the world, not only by its words but by its example. To this day, I can remember the smell of that album sleeve, glossy, thick, and oily, quite different from the cheap paper-thin sleeves prevalent among so many commercial albums. With three kinetic photos of the band members on the right side of the sleeve, white lettering giving credit on a black ground on the left side, and all of the lyrics on the alternate side, I devoured every word and image. Something profound spoke to my eager and open 13-year-old mind.
— Read on www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/how-rush-kept-me-alive/

Republic of Letters

On the Surface, Hungary Is a Democracy. But What Lies Underneath? – The New York Times

Hungary has the trappings of a 21st-century European democracy, but uses its devices to exert the same kind of control as the autocracies of the Cold War.
— Read on www.nytimes.com/2018/12/25/world/europe/hungary-democracy-orban.html

The NYT is absolutely obsessed with Hungary. Sadly, it ignored the country while under communist rule.

Republic of Letters

Guardini on the Incarnation

The. End of the Modern World

As we quickly exit Advent and even more quickly approach the 12 days of Christmas, I can’t help but think of one of my favorite writers, the Italian-German Romano Guardini, on the meaning of time and the Incarnation.

The world, time, history had begun with Creation; they reached apotheosis in the Incarnation of the Son of God-“the fullness of Time”-and all shall end with the destruction of the world and the Last Judgment. . . . [as such], each moment of time was etched against the sweeping panorama of history.  Each present moment gained its uniqueness from the impact of the Incarnation with marked the piercing of time itself by eternity. —The End of the Modern World

May we never take for granted that the “fullness of time” reached its culmination and happened tonight, two thousand years ago, when a humble Jewish mother gave birth to the Son of God. Not in a palace, but in a dung-filled manger, surrounded by the most humble. Thus came our Lord.

Republic of Letters

Chesterton on Myth (Quotes)

“Behind all these things is the fact that beauty and terror are very real things and related to a real spiritual world; and to touch them at all, even in doubt or fancy, is to stir the deep things of the soul.” (pg. 108)

“These are the myths: and he who has no sympathy with myths has no sympathy with me.  But he who has most sympathy with myths will most fully realise they are not and never were a religion, in the sense that Christianity or even Islam is a religion.  They satisfy some of the needs satisfied by a religion; and notably the need for doing certain things at certain dates; the need of the twin ideas of festivity and formality.  But though they provide a man with a calendar they do not provide him with a creed.” (pg. 109)

“But in reality the rivers of mythology and philosophy run parallel and do not mingle till they meet in the sea of Christendom.  Simple secularists still talk as if the Church has introduced a sort of schism between reason and religion.  The truth is that the Church was actually the first thing that ever tried to combine reason and religion.  There had never before been any such union of the priests and the philosophers.  Mythology, then, sought God through the imagination; or sought truth by means of beauty.” (pg. 111)

–G.K. Chesterton, Everlasting Man (Ignatius edition).

Republic of Letters

St. Brubeck and Time Changes

Time Changes, 1964

I’m sure that many of you well remember that jazz master, Dave Brubeck, died six years ago this month. I always liked him when I was alive, but I’ve certainly got to know him and his art much better since he passed onto the heavenly realm.

Given his extraordinary creativity and his equally extraordinary defense of the humane (especially against racism in the 1950s), I wonder if it’s time we start looking into the possible canonization of Brubeck.

While I have no idea if there are miracles associated with this life, I do know that the man lived and breathed a tangible grace in all that he did. And, not too surprisingly, he found his way into the Catholic Church, adding to an already stunning list of converts over the past century.

One of my single best purchases over the past year was of the boxed set of his five albums dealing with time, FOR ALL TIME, capturing his recordings from 1959 to 1965. It includes Time Out, Time Further Out, Time In, Countdown, and Time Changes. Unquestionably, his most famous album is the 1959, Time Out, fearing “Take Five.”

Yet, for me, the best album is his truly experimental, Time Changes. I suppose it’s the prog rock inside my soul, but the second side features only one song, the 16-plus minute “Elementals,” a piece that is equal parts classical composition and jazz. I simply can’t get enough of it.

When I listen to it, I feel as though I’m living inside a sacrament. It is just so utterly and deeply graceful.

God definitely touched the soul of Brubeck with something special, and I believe we would be fools to dismiss that gift to Brubeck and, ultimately, to ourselves.

St. Brubeck? Maybe. Let’s ask and find out.

Addendum (found after posting this piece). Brubeck’s agent tried to get him to replace Eugene Wright (a black American) with a white American. Brubeck who had been supporting black musicians since World War II adamantly refused. “Dave refused; the tour was cancelled at a great financial loss; but Dave’s message was clear“–reads a letter from his agent.