Hello world!

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If you’re reading this, welcome!

Although I’m new to the Vivaldi blogging platform, I’ve imported several years’ worth of posts from Blogspot as part of my effort to de-Google myself.  It will take some time to get everything formatted to my liking.

I share memes at Facebook and Twitter, but this space is for more in-depth work.  The perceptive reader will note a lack of recent posts — the hours that I work make it difficult to compose my thoughts.  Until I find a new job or strike out on another pilgrimage, I will not be posting here very often.

 

Peter the Pilgrim

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The Areopagus Podcast is hosted by Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick, an Orthodox Christian priest, and Mike Landsman, an Evangelical Christian pastor. Fr. Andrew and I first met in 2004 as students at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, although we’d made contact online before then.
I was their guest for the latest episode, talking about pilgrimage. (I was introduced at 12:45 into the 98 minute long episode.) I didn’t say much about any of my big pilgrimages in particular, but the general discussion may still be of interest. The episode can be downloaded from the site, streamed online, or you can subscribe to the podcast series and download it that way.

Coming soon to a podcast near you!

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I had a great time with Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick and Pastor Mike Landsman this afternoon, recording an episode on pilgrimage for The Areopagus podcast. (It’ll take some time for Ancient Faith to work their production magic on the raw recording. Watch this space!)

I’d hoped to mention this book, but couldn’t work it in. The Road to Emmaus: Pilgrimage as a Way of Life is a great book about how to live life as a pilgrim. There are chapters about traditional pilgrimage, with anecdotes from the author’s experience, but there is also insight on how to be a pilgrim in daily life. Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Hilaire Belloc and others are quoted throughout.

‘Alternative Facts’

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The most striking difference between ancient and modern sophists is that the ancients were satisfied with a passing victory of the argument at the expense of truth, whereas the moderns want a more lasting victory at the expense of reality. In other words, one destroyed the dignity of human thought whereas the others destroy the dignity of human action. The old manipulators of logic were the concern of the philosopher, whereas the modern manipulators of facts stand in the way of the historian. For history itself is destroyed, and its comprehensibility – based upon the fact that it is enacted by men and therefore can be understood by men – is in danger, whenever facts are no longer held to be part and parcel of the past and present world, and are misused to prove this or that opinion.
– Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism‎