2020-08-09 21:01
Have you ever heard a girls' choir in a cold but luminous chapel with marble floors as smooth as ice, and jewelled light aflame in the windows like rubies and amber? At university I would go… Read More
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Counseling Kevin Blog
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Observations on law, life and the search for intelligent life in cyberspace.
2020-07-15 02:35
The intellect thinks. The body dances. And the spirit sings. A song, a simple song. When love and memory are overwhelming, and the soul, though crushed, takes flight, it does so in a simple… Read More
2020-07-11 16:39
"When finally the sky grew ink-black, the trees were visible only as their swaying branches blotted out the stars that crossed in blazing showers, as they sometimes do. The language of the s… Read More
2020-06-04 03:21
Let Me Go Christina Rossetti When I come to the end of the road And the sun has set for me I want no rites in a gloom filled room Why cry for a soul set free? Miss me a little, but not for l… Read More
2020-01-28 23:03
THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS by Langston Hughes I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown d… Read More
2020-01-15 21:31
"In this treacherous world/Nothing is the truth nor a lie./Everything depends on the color/Of the crystal through which one sees it." ― Pedro Calderón de la Barca The longer I l… Read More
2019-05-30 19:07
In No Strange Land (The Kingdom of God) --Francis Thompson O world invisible, we view thee, O world intangible, we touch thee, O world unknowable, we know thee, Inapprehensible, we clutch th… Read More
2019-01-04 19:40
A couple of years ago, during Lent, I took a "social media fast," the results of which were edifying. Starting January 1, 2019 (after a couple of parting "tweets"), I've taken a "Twitter fas… Read More
2018-12-27 23:04
It takes two to tango is an idiom that is derived from a song of the same title, written by Al Hoffman and Dick Manning, and published in 1952...It takes two to tango is most often used to m… Read More
2018-12-24 18:05
Life dies but forever will there be music. Always. ― Nicholas A. McGirr Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny Child, Bye, bye, lully, lullay. Lullay, thou little tiny Child, Bye, bye, lully… Read More
2018-12-16 22:16
For some reason I should be able to articulate but cannot, during this Advent I feel the need to re-read Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "The Cost of Discipleship." Unfortunately, I cannot locate my c… Read More
2018-12-15 02:14
If you're interested in transcendence and the relation of music, beauty, and religious faith to the same (and to the permanent things), then this will be one the most interesting 90 minutes… Read More
2018-12-06 03:52
SHIFTING THE SUN ---Diana Der-Hovanessian When your father dies, say the Irish you lose your umbrella against bad weather. May his sun be your light, say the Armenians. When your father dies… Read More
2018-11-23 22:19
i shall imagine life ---E.E. Cummings i shall imagine life is not worth dying if (and when)roses complain their beauties are in vain but though mankind persuades itself that every weed&rsquo&hell…Read More
2018-10-28 21:54
A sick society must think much about politics, as a sick man must think much about his digestion; to ignore the subject may be fatal cowardice for one as for the other. But if either comes t… Read More
2018-10-09 21:26
There are things of which I may not speak; There are dreams that cannot die; There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak, And bring a pallor into the cheek, And a mist before the eye… Read More
2018-08-03 21:26
By declaring that man is responsible and must actualize the potential meaning of his life, I wish to stress that the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within… Read More
2018-07-21 21:15
From "In Memory of W.B. Yeats" by W.H. Auden: Follow, poet, follow right To the bottom of the night, With your unconstraining voice Still persuade us to rejoice; With the farming of a verse… Read More
2018-07-16 16:37
The encounter with the beautiful can become the wound of the arrow that strikes the heart and in this way opens our eyes, so that later, from this experience, we take the criteria for judgem… Read More
2018-07-14 19:33
Nobody sees anybody truly but all through the flaws of their own egos. That is the way we all see ...each other in life. Vanity, fear, desire, competition-- all such distortions within our o… Read More
2018-06-08 21:48
Although James V. Schall, S.J., may be officially retired from his academic positions of teaching theology and philosophy, his mind remains active and as insightful as ever. His recent essay… Read More
2018-05-27 01:55
Because it's been that kind of year... IN MEMORY OF MY MOTHER --Patrick Kavanagh I do not think of you lying in the wet clay Of a Monaghan graveyard; I see You walking down a lane among the… Read More
2018-05-19 19:15
None of us consist of the snapshots of us that exist in the minds of others, taken in the course of a single experience with us, or even in the course of many experiences with us. If you acc… Read More
2018-05-15 03:13
I suppose that there are a number of reasons that a person who purportedly hates you repeatedly visits your blog to read your posts. Among those reasons might be a perverse joy in discoverin… Read More
2018-03-31 02:00
Moonrise --Gerard Manley Hopkins I awoke in the Midsummer not to call night, in the white and the walk of the morning: The moon, dwindled and thinned to the fringe of a finger-nail held to t… Read More
2018-03-29 17:13
To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. --C.S. Lewis We buried my mother-in-law last week. She died exactly two months shy of her… Read More
2018-03-04 16:28
Luke 6:36-38 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, a… Read More
2018-03-03 17:27
On the seventy-first anniversary of my late sister's birth, and over thirty-one years since her death, I'm re-posting the following from six years ago. Do not go gentle into that good night… Read More
2018-02-20 22:45
On the eve of my beloved's commencement of chemotherapy, I have been struck by glimpses of two different aspects of a decades-long love affair that is facing the reality of that portion of t… Read More
2018-01-27 17:19
"Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don't have the strength." ―Theodore Roosevelt "Courage doesn’t always roar, sometimes it’s the quiet v… Read More
2017-12-16 20:33
A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don't know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox… Read More
2017-12-14 13:09
“When we scoff at the true, the good, and the beautiful; when we worship the false and fleeting and call the profane sacred; when we conflate what is noble with what is noisome; when f… Read More
2017-12-11 18:39
“Into this world, this demented inn in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ comes uninvited.” —Thoma Merton “The lack of mystery in our modern lif… Read More
2017-12-02 21:54
"One clear moment, one of trance One missed step, one perfect dance One missed shot, one and only chance Life is all...but one fleeting glance." --Sanober Khan "They lose the day in expectat… Read More
2017-10-12 16:43
Lying in a hospital bed for four days, while doctors filled me full of increasingly powerful antibiotics in a race to find one that would kill the drug-resistant bacteria that was racing thr… Read More
2017-10-08 20:42
"We are torn between nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known." ---Carson McCullers "Thou… Read More
2017-09-05 06:33
But what I want I cannot have. I cannot have so much time ahead of me that it is seemingly without limit. I cannot any longer be so deeply in love with the world now that I know that my love… Read More
2017-09-02 04:00
Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est. Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor. Exsultemus, et in ipso jucundemur. Timeamus, et amemus Deum vivum. Et ex corde diligamus nos sincero. Ubi caritas et… Read More
2017-08-31 16:29
Knowing that Christ rising again from the dead, dieth now no more, death shall no more have dominion over him. --Romans 6:9 And Death Shall Have No Dominion --Dylan Thomas And death shall ha… Read More
2017-08-20 20:53
"Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says 'I need you because I love you.'" ~ Erich Fromm Forty-two years and counting, and we're both still learning something n… Read More
2017-08-16 16:04
We are the time. We are the famous --Jorge Luis Borges We are the time. We are the famous metaphor from Heraclitus the Obscure. We are the water, not the hard diamond, the one that is lost… Read More
2017-08-07 22:14
I'm a fan of Gregory Porter, who, among his other honors, has won a Grammy for Best Jazz Male Vocalist in two of the past four years. Among his many talents, he has perfect pitch and, just a… Read More
2017-08-01 20:14
Richer Then Gold By Strickland Gillilan You may have tangible wealth untold; Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. Richer than I you can never be – I had a mother who read to me &ldqu&hell…Read More
2017-07-30 21:36
As we stumble toward transcendence, sometimes it may be better to simply lie where we fall along the path and remain silent, listening...listening...listening Read More
2017-07-17 17:01
A Thought On Death - W.H. Auden When life as opening buds is sweet, And golden hopes the fancy greet, And Youth prepares his joys to meet, Alas! how hard it is to die! When just is seized so… Read More
2017-06-13 14:51
It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us. This we can do only if we are not angry with… Read More
2017-06-04 03:22
"I will give you this, my love, and I will not bargain or barter any longer. I will love you, as sure as He has loved me. I will discover what I can discover and though you remain a mystery… Read More
2017-05-21 19:30
They gave themselves up to the stars the way swimmers can surrender to the waves, and the stars took them without resistance. --Mark Helprin, "Winter's Tale" Lullaby --W.H. Auden Lay your sl… Read More
2017-05-13 15:49
From "New Seeds of Contemplation" by Thomas Merton: "It is a pity that the beautiful Christian metaphor "salvation" has come to be so hackneyed and therefore so despised. It has been turned… Read More
2017-05-06 02:49
“What Freud said about the Irish is: We’re the only people who are impervious to psychoanalysis,” declares Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) in Martin Scorsese’s film The D… Read More
2017-05-04 00:33
“Between what is said and not meant And what is meant and not said Most of love is lost” ― Khalil Gibran Read More
2017-05-01 20:28
"What is hell? Hell is oneself. Hell is alone, the other figures in it merely projections. There is nothing to escape from and nothing to escape to. One is always alone." --T.S. Eliot Read More
2017-04-20 20:31
"Most people come to know only one corner of their room, one spot near the window, one narrow strip on which they keep walking back and forth." ― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young… Read More
2017-04-17 18:16
A planned Lenten "Facebook Fast" quickly turned into a near-total abstinence from all non-work-related social media activity for the entirety of Lent. I recommend it. The only exceptions inv… Read More
2017-02-05 18:14
"Never miss an opportunity to make others happy, even if you have to leave them alone in order to do it." Author Unknown Some doors, even if remaining unlocked, should remain closed. (Despit… Read More
2017-02-02 22:34
A Book of Music --Jack Spicer Coming at an end, the lovers Are exhausted like two swimmers. Where Did it end? There is no telling. No love is Like an ocean with the dizzy procession of the w… Read More
2017-01-24 22:33
To love another as an object is to love him as a ‘thing,’ as a commodity which can be used, exploited, enjoyed and then cast off. But to love another as a person we must begin by… Read More
2017-01-18 23:28
"There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so. One must simply hold out and endure it. At first that sounds very hard, but at… Read More
2017-01-12 21:09
Because a relative asked me, the following, in no particular order of preference, are the past half-dozen novels I've read for the first time and enjoyed: "John" by Niall Williams "TransAtla… Read More
2017-01-01 04:43
"I am old. I should have left before. Any fool can ride the chariots of victory. It takes judgement to get off at the right time." --Richard Ben Sapir, "The Far Arena" I'm done. It's been a… Read More
2016-12-29 22:44
There are a few reasons that I like this song. First, anything Sara Bareilles sings has a more-than-even chance of being good. She's got "chops," as jazz musicians used to put it. I also lik… Read More
2016-12-17 00:44
[Reprised from a decade ago because some beauty never ages] And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith, and arose, and was baptized. ---A… Read More
2016-12-14 21:32
For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth - that Love is the ultimate and highest g… Read More
2016-12-09 21:48
The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper. --W.B. Yeats The modern mind has lost all capacity to wonder. It has lost all capacity to look into the m… Read More
2016-11-29 22:26
"If it weren't for music, I would think that love is mortal." --Mark Helprin, "A Soldier of the Great War" Last night, I suffered through the first half-hour of a two-hour ABC special that o… Read More
2016-11-21 22:12
You Are Tired --E.E. Cumings You are tired (I think) Of the always puzzle of living and doing; And so am I. Come with me then And we'll leave it far and far away- (Only you and I understand!… Read More
2016-11-11 22:41
The Lamp of Life --Amy Lowell Always we are following a light, Always the light recedes; with groping hands We stretch toward this glory, while the lands We journey through are hidden from o… Read More
2016-11-02 19:20
David Warren reflects on Archbishop Charles Chaput's recent speech at Notre Dame, and tells those of us who claim the faith that, though time marches on, in the end, it's not a numbers game… Read More
2016-10-27 21:37
“Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or no… Read More
2016-10-24 16:45
Two articles I read today whipsawed me from one emotional extreme to the other. Right out of bed, while still waking up, sipping my morning coffee, Michael J. Totten in City Journal warned m… Read More
2016-10-24 03:21
Those Who Love --Sara Teasdale Those who love the most, Do not talk of their love, Francesca, Guinevere, Deirdre, Iseult, Heloise, In the fragrant gardens of heaven Are silent, or speak if a… Read More
2016-10-12 23:06
A Passing Glimpse --Robert Frost I often see flowers from a passing car That are gone before I can tell what they are. I want to get out of the train and go back To see what they were beside… Read More
2016-10-10 07:05
As I near the end of my more than four decade run as a practicing lawyer, I have been asked by someone close to me that if I had my life to live over, knowing what I now know, would I have c… Read More
2016-10-09 19:05
“From the ruins, lonely and inexplicable as the sphinx, rose the Empire State Building. And just as it had been tradition of mine to climb to the Plaza roof to take leave of the beauti… Read More
2016-09-18 03:13
Reconciliation SOME may have blamed you that you took away The verses that could move them on the day When, the ears being deafened, the sight of the eyes blind With lightning, you went from… Read More
2016-09-11 23:40
Fifteen years to the day. The transcendent trumps the ephemeral, or, at least, it should. The Names --Billy Collins Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night. A soft rain stole in, unh… Read More
2016-09-10 23:46
“Music is the divine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart..” --Pablo Casals Read More
2016-09-05 04:01
"Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites…in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the cou… Read More
2016-08-28 02:52
From Wednesday's The Washington Post: The service member killed in Afghanistan’s restive Helmand province earlier this week has been identified as Staff Sgt. Matthew V. Thompson, the P… Read More
2016-08-20 15:45
"Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn't matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet… Read More
2016-08-14 19:03
All Woods Must Fail O! Wanderers in the shadowed land Despair not! For though dark they stand, All woods there be must end at last, And see the open sun go past: The setting sun, the rising… Read More
2016-08-08 15:01
I Am the Lucky One Down by the lake in your three year old rock kitchen you made me breakfast, scrambled eggs, toast, sausage. We both cup hot coffee in our hands, taking imaginary sips. I a… Read More
2016-08-05 22:34
I have been trying to avoid writing about this year's presidential race, mostly because to say that those who attempt to take our Catholic faith seriously are between a rock and a hard place… Read More
2016-08-04 22:02
Marigolds By Robert Graves With a fork drive Nature out, She will ever yet return; Hedge the flowerbed all about, Pull or stab or cut or burn, She will ever yet return. Look: the constant ma… Read More
2016-08-01 03:43
“All your life an unattainable ecstasy has hovered just beyond the grasp of your consciousness. The day is coming when you will wake to find, beyond all hope, that you have attained it… Read More
2016-07-30 00:32
An excellent performance in an excellent movie, HUD, adapted from an excellent novel, Horseman, Pass By. Melvyn Douglas won an academy award for his portrayal of an old West Texas rancher fa… Read More
2016-07-27 22:31
Heaven has no other prayer niche but love. Without love the world is worthless. Become the slave to love, this is the course. This is the path for all pious people. ---Nezami-Ganjavi Slave T… Read More
2016-07-24 15:30
Author George Weigel, from ten years ago, on the anniversary of the death of John Paul II: The mandarins of postmodern culture insist that the roots of our religious and moral traditions are… Read More
2016-07-22 19:22
All men dream but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for th… Read More
2016-07-20 16:08
From the essay, "Our Friends The Saints," The Last Essay of Georges Bernanos (translated by Joan and Barry Ulanov), by Georges Bernanos: The people who have so much trouble understanding our… Read More
2016-07-17 18:50
Tides Sara Teasdale Love in my heart was a fresh tide flowing Where the starlike sea gulls soar; The sun was keen and the foam was blowing High on the rocky shore. But now in the dusk the ti… Read More
2016-07-13 19:44
I represented the late Sen. Bill Armstrong (R. CO) at one time on banking matters, and I remember him telling me that one of his closest friends in the US Senate was Jay Rockefeller, a Democ… Read More
2016-07-08 00:18
Heart, we will forget him! You and I, to-night! You may forget the warmth he gave, I will forget the light. When you have done, pray tell me, That I my thoughts may dim; Haste! lest while yo… Read More
2016-07-05 21:23
One more passage from Pope Benedict XVI's book God and the World, one that ought to warm the heart of diagrammers of sentences and grammar Nazis of all stripes. In discussing the contributio… Read More
2016-07-04 10:47
It doesn't matter who my father was, it matters who I remember he was. --Anne Sexton The man to the left is my father in 1944, age 19, just graduated from advanced training as a Navy Corpsma… Read More
2016-07-03 02:35
Inklings Inklings san ink Cling to the dry Point of the pen Whose stem I mouth Not knowing when The truth will out Samuel Menashe Read More
2016-07-01 00:03
It's always a happy coincidence when you're reading a book and realize that a writer you admire is chugging up the same river at the same time. In reading a recent essay in The Catholic Thin… Read More
2016-06-28 22:47
Rue For what I did And did not do And do without In my old age Rue, not rage Against that night We go into, Sets me straight On what to do Before I die— Sit in the shade, Look at the s… Read More
2016-06-26 21:55
I've been out in the hedgerows all last week, mixing it up with the forces of Sauron in the battle for the soul of corporate America, and when I return I find in my Feedly Reader a mix of po… Read More
2016-06-25 01:40
Longing Come to me in my dreams, and then By day I shall be well again! For so the night will more than pay The hopeless longing of the day. Come, as thou cam'st a thousand times, A messenge… Read More
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