Was Hildegard of Bingen a saint? One might think so from the way this 12th-century abbess wrote music. She compiled her Symphonia harmoniae caelestium revelationum (“The Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations”) over the course of a long life that creatively did not begin until she was in her forties (b. 1098). In 1141, … Read more
Have you ever suspected that all church music sounds the same, at least in certain genres? If you have heard one plainchant, you have heard them all? No matter how much the New Agers rave about the monks of Santo Domingo de Silos, who must be somewhat perplexed by the new pop chart audience for … Read more
The hand that signed the paper felled a city; Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath, Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country; These five kings did a king to death. — Dylan Thomas Historical turning points are notoriously difficult to identify. While they are occurring, few notice, and even those who do … Read more
Read Dostoevsky before going to the Soviet Union. Dostoevsky said that there are two ages of man: from the ascent of man to the death of God, and from the death of God to the annihilation of man. A grasp of this chronology is the only fitting preparation for what one sees and experiences in … Read more
What causes war and what causes fightings among you? Is it not your passions that are at war in your members? You desire and do not have; so you kill. And you covet and cannot obtain; so you fight and wage war. The Epistle of St. James (4:1-2) The great enthusiasm for the flurry of … Read more
Managua, November 2-5. Peeling paint; warped plywood; shantytowns; rationed water; walls smeared with graffiti; unrelieved shabbiness. At night only a few streetlights poke themselves into the darkness; they too are rationed. Police kiosks, mounted on cement tripods, are falling over into street intersections they are meant to control — an engineering miscalculation. In response to … Read more