Nothing since Graceland comes near to excellence until now. Go thee, purchase his new album So Beautiful or So What. For sheer heart-rending poignancy, The Rewrite. Best call-and-response preachin' - Getting Ready for Christmas. Hands down best answer to his (long time ago now) nihilistic song, The Boxer, Questions for the Angels. 
Our Holy Father proclaimed the Good News at the Easter Vigil in this homily. Had I been able to attend, I would have heard again with joy what Rocco Palmo says is the church's greatest song (if you generally don't assist at the Easter Vigil, take the time to drench yourself in its truth, goodness, and beauty). For friends who like St Thomas need a bit more evidence to believe, have them read Mark Shea's piece here.
Over the weekend, my siblings and their spouses - minus a brother who died of a massive heart attack three years ago - came for a wonderful if brief visit. What a joy to see and spend precious time with family! Their sharing of faith, hope, and love is a gift that I will cherish for a long, long time. May you, gentle reader, be so blessed to have loved ones who love our Lord and witness to their faith so deeply and so well.
Happily, gentle reader, old Athos wound his way to the television studio of Marcus Grodi's The Journey Home last Monday. The interview for the television show went well, I think. I had the added pleasure of discussing the seventh chapter of St. Paul's Letter to the Romans (12-25) with Mr. Grodi for his radio program, Deep in Scripture. I did, of course, work in the vital topics of Marian chivalry and a means of avoiding distraction from the reality of our mortal life.
I had a stroke back in 2000 and much of what Jill Bolte Taylor describes in this presentation, I too felt. However, one difference for me, throughout my experience, from the very onslaught through to the healing process, I felt safe, snuggled securely in God's Hands, never questioning the outcome, regardless of what that may have been. The intellectualizing of what had happened to me did not really kick in until I came face to face, or rather when my entire sensory system became over-whelmed by the shock of massive stimuli walking into the first large retail chain store during my recovery. I'll leave that story for another time.
It was during the intellectualizing period (seeing the phenomenon of my stroke) that my center of gravity really began to shift. To help put this into words I quote from Anthony J. Kelly's book, The Resurrection Effect:
"when the given phenomenon begins to be appreciated in its own right and in the conditions of its appearance, the intentionality of the all-competent rational subject is reversed... A critical and even contemplative reverence for the given phenomenon becomes primary, thus allowing it first of all to be received on its own terms. The preconceptions and fixed points of our routine perceptions and representations are called into question, and our whole mode of perceiving is reordered."I feel that my studies in mimetic theory and Girardian thought had helped to prepare me for this gravitational shift - taking me from a perspective that was ego-centered to an outward contemplation of something more. All this can get hard to explain, so I will let Jill Bolte Taylor take you on a journey that hopefully will help you step out of yourself.
