HERE is the recipe for Strawberry Devonshire Pie that I promised as part of my suggested Easter menu. It is easy to make though I recommend making the crust from scratch yourself. I’m not a fan of those gargantuan shipped strawberries, but even they work well in this recipe. This is a refreshing contrast to Easter lamb and is another recipe from a family cookbook compiled by my mother, who incidentally was one of the first female computer programmers in America and worked on computer calculations for the hydrogen bomb before becoming a housewife and raising seven children.

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THE obliteration of childhood has brought dramatic increases in juvenile crime. That especially includes crime among girls, which more than doubled between 1985 and 2007, exceeding the rate of inceases for male crime. Fatherless America, the land of institutionalized matriarchy and casual neglect of the young, is producing hardened and violent girls. This 16-year-old and her friend are charged in Illinois with handcuffing and sexually molesting a 17-year-old mentally retarded boy. This is the face of a girl whose innocence died centuries ago.

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WRITING in response to this post about a woman’s disappointment with her husband, Jeff W. writes:

There are two kinds of love: human love and God’s love. Sometimes these two kinds of love are called by the ancient Greek terms eros and agape.

Eros and agape are very different. One main difference is that eros recognizes value in its object and loves it, while agape loves and then creates value in its object. In other words, eros recognizes an alpha male and loves him because he makes her feel safe, protected, and feminine. Agape, however, can love any person, even the most loathsome and disgusting. This is the kind of love a Christian may have for a diseased and dying beggar from the streets of Calcutta, or even (though it may seem unbelievable) a beta male husband. Through agape love, a loathed and rejected person becomes the beloved.

There is a good summary of the qualities of these two kinds of love on page 159 of this book (scroll to the bottom). (more…)

JEN WRITES:

I would like to be one of the many readers to let you know how much your site is appreciated. I hope you continue this endeavor for an extremely long time. I hope to meet women in my life that hold the same conservative beliefs as you do, but until then, I live my life for my children and husband. My upbringing was horrible to say the least, so I’m still learning how to match these innate, conservative beliefs God blessed me with to real life where I literally feel like I’m learning from scratch, especially when it comes to marriage.

Which brings me to my problem. I recently typed this in a mother’s forum to get other mothers’ opinions: (more…)

FRED OWENS writes:

“We’re pregnant.” This might not bother anyone else too much, but I’m a writer, and I live and die by my words — which is why, when I overheard that phrase the other day at the cafe, I wanted to get up and choke the fellow.

He said, “We’re pregnant.” I wanted to say the hell you are. (more…)

MARK writes:

I visited the Faith & Heritage site and I read the article in question, along with the comments, and from what I can gather, these folks are for the most part not the same people Lawrence Auster had in mind when he was speaking (broadly) of American evangelicals, whom he correctly describes as the Jews’ best friends. 

Yes, as you and Auster rightly observe, the Jews have an unfair revulsion toward evangelical Christians, and for what they represent politically. However, when people like “Generation 5” start using the Bible as a weapon against other people, and lift the words of Christ out of context to smear all Jews as “a brood of vipers,” then that’s just rank Jew hatred, and it’s no wonder Jews would feel antagonized by such a dehumanizing attitude. (more…)

  AQUINAS wrote in his Summa of Mary's suffering at the foot of the cross. He said that the Blessed Mother felt, in the words of a translation by Father Philip Hughes, "a staggering of the mind." She knew the complete goodness of her son and witnessed his complete disgrace and torture. "[H]er mind swayed, for she saw Him the victim of such vileness, and yet knew Him for the author of such wonders." Her suffering was enhanced by her own perfection. Mary is an example to mothers everywhere. To be a mother is necessarily to suffer and sacrifice for one's children. An essential part of a mother's role is awareness. This is the keen awareness of, and the vicarious experience of, a child's hardships. In contemplating Mary's awareness, we are elevated, as if she conveys some of her fortitude. A mother's awareness never ends, but with it she is brought along the steep paths of divine contemplation.

I ASK you to consider, dear reader, this simple poem by Robert Frost. It is neither hard to grasp or difficult to follow:

Into My Own   
 
ONE of my wishes is that those dark trees, 
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze, 
Were not, as ’twere, the merest mask of gloom, 
But stretched away unto the edge of doom. 
 
I should not be withheld but that some day       
Into their vastness I should steal away, 
Fearless of ever finding open land, 
Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand. 
 
I do not see why I should e’er turn back, 
Or those should not set forth upon my track         
To overtake me, who should miss me here 
And long to know if still I held them dear. 
 
They would not find me changed from him they knew— 
Only more sure of all I thought was true.  

Now I ask you this. Do you know any black person in America who is a devoted fan of Robert Frost or who might recite this poem from memory or even enthusiastically refer to it? Please bear in mind when you answer this that Frost is not a difficult poet. He is no Milton or Spencer.

Here’s another question. Do you know any white person in America who thinks the black author Toni Morrison is one of the greatest authors who ever lived or that Maya Angelou is Frost’s equal? If the answer to this question is yes, and the answer to the first question above is no, why is this so? Let me suggest, blacks are honest about what they like and dislike. They display this honesty all the time. They simply don’t pretend they like what they don’t like and this gives them the freedom of living within their own skins, so to speak. They have no great affection for Robert Frost, and that’s that.

Whites, on the other hand, are utterly deceitful, living in a cloud of self-imposed lies.

Near where I live one of the greatest art collections in America, indeed in the world, is housed in a museum. One Sunday of the month, the museum opens to the public free of charge. Though the city is a majority black population, very few blacks show up at the museum even when it is free. That’s because blacks don’t pretend they like what they don’t like.

If, however, the museum was filled with primitive African art, or perhaps urban graffiti presented as art, whites would pay $20 each to cram its hallways.

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A READER writes:

I just gave a small donation to your website, and I wanted to send an accompanying note of personal gratitude. I started to read your blog about 8 months ago, and it has transformed my thoughts and interactions with the world. I have always been traditional in some sense, but as Flannery O’Connor said, “If you live today, you breath in nihilism.” That darkness of this age was slowly creeping over me until I found your site. The ideas and writings there have provided a catalyst for me to defend tradition and to take pride in it. Your efforts have helped me develop a much deeper and fuller understanding. Thank you. (more…)

HERE is an interesting reflection by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira on the three falls of Christ. I am posting the piece in its entirety below:

One might ask why Our Lord fell three times along the Way of the Cross, and not two or four? I believe there is a reason for the three falls, since everything in Our Lord’s life and Passion had a profound significance. (more…)

A READER writes:

My husband fainted in church today. We were going through the Passion when he suddenly fell over into the pew in front of us, face first. I thought he lost his balance then I realized he was unconscious. His eyes rolled back. I thought he had a heart attack at first. He came to and the couple in front of us helped him out of church and told me to get him to the hospital. (more…)

  THIS website is a labor of love, with pennies of profit for each hour that goes into it. I want to be able to continue to serve this community -- and that's what it is in the best sense of the word, a scattered community of individuals with a spirit of inquiry and an appreciation for the common good. To continue, I need your help. So, please, let me know what this site is worth to you by donating, be it a dime or a dollar a day, or a dime or dollar every time you find something worthwhile, or whatever you think you could spare to keep the site alive. With your help, I will be able to continue to do my part. Thank you to all those who have given.

GOOD FRIDAY is normally a dark, grief-stricken day. In my family history, one Good Friday stands out as sadder than all others.

I had a great aunt, Ann, who was completely deaf from early childhood. She was in her early twenties. After having attended college for a year, Ann was resigned to living at home with her widowed mother. She helped my great grandmother care for her elderly father, known by my mother as Grandfather Rafferty.

Grandfather Rafferty had a long white beard. On the afternoon of Good Friday 78 years ago, he was in the parlor smoking his pipe and Ann was upstairs. No one else was at home. Grandfather Rafferty fell asleep in his chair with the pipe still in his mouth. His beard caught fire. He presumably called for help but Ann could not hear him. He died the next day. (more…)

HERE IS  the recipe for another dish in my Easter menu. It is what I call Gruyére Potatoes, but is otherwise known by the French as Gratin Dauphinois. It is taken from Patricia Wells’ excellent French cookbook Bistro Cooking.  I have made this many times, and everyone – children and adults – has liked it, except for one person who categorically rejected potatoes.

Generously salt the milk and water in which you cook the potatoes. I prefer Yukon Gold potatoes in this recipe because they do not fall apart. (more…)

THOMAS F. BERTONNEAU writes:

Peter S. approvingly quotes Carl Ernst on the urgent “task” of contemporary Islamic studies, which is none other than “to humanize Muslims in the eyes of non-Muslims.” Ernst – and, as we may assume, Peter S. – can only be of the opinion that Westerners chronically and habitually dehumanize Muslims, but this is an absurdity. On the contrary, Westerners have romanticized Muslims since the eighteenth century, and Western elites are even more prone to such romanticism today than their bien pensant precursors were three hundred years ago. In evidence I cite the never-ending palaver about “the religion of peace” that President Bush II inaugurated within days of 9/11. (more…)