Indubitable

Rudyard Kipling  Joseph Smith, Jr. (1865-1936)       (1805-1844) Rudyard Kipling is the youngest Nobel laureate for literature (1907). Though born to an aristocratic family in Bombay, he was exposed to hardship early. When he was only 5, he was sent to boarding school back in England. For six years his life was a combination of cruelty and neglect at the hands of people that should have nurtured and loved him. Of this period in his life, he later said: “I…

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The Christian Martyrs’ Last Prayer, 1863by Jean-Léon GérômeWalter Art Museum, Baltimore, MD The story of Alypius’ addiction to gladiatorial games in the waning years of the Roman Empire has me thinking about human susceptibility to addiction in general (here for part 1 of this story).When I lived in Boston, I was the Home Teacher of a man that became addicted to crack cocaine.  Eddie was not the kind of guy you think of when you say ‘crackhead’.  He was smart, sophisticated…

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Pollice Verso (Thumbs Down), 1872  by Jean-Léon Gérôme (Phoenix Art Museum) Alypius* was a life-long friend of Augustine of Hippo, one of the greatest Christian thinkers of all time. Both were born in the 4th century in Numidia (current Algeria) which was part of Roman North Africa.  They were converted to Christianity together while studying in Milan. Though revered as a Saint of the Catholic Church, there was a time in his life when Alypius seemed hopelessly enslaved to an addiction of…

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The other day, Tate was looking at treasures in my den and came upon this rare find. The beautiful patina indicates it comes from a bygone era; it’s safe to say there are only a handful in existence. Recognizing a genuine antiquity when he saw it, he immediately asked the golden question: “Can I have this when you die?”  Now that kind of question could easily precipitate a full-blown panic attack in any other middle-aged Mormon male.  The quiet little voice inside…

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Denisovich – by Leanne Rutter I’ve been reading The Second World War (Antony Beaver) and been astounded at the magnitude of the suffering and hardship of the people that were caught up the the conflict. I had never known how unspeakably evil the likes of Hitler, Stalin and the leaders of the Imperial Army of Japan were until reading the details of their atrocities. It kind of shakes my faith in human decency to realize that these evil few were able to perpetrate…

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