I finished Castor and Pollux. Wow. 🤯    2 metrics and 2 thoughts.    2 metrics   (1) if you can judge a book by the ability to put it down, consider this: I began the book Saturday. I usually go to bed at 9:30pm. Yesterday (Sunday) at 9:58pm (after reading all day): I decided I had to finish… I had to know the ending. At 12:30am, I finished.  (2) if you can judge a book by the number of dogeared pages of insights that blew your mind, see my picture at the end of this email. 

If I were a character in some story, would I have a happy ending?   That is the question I ponder as I lie in the MRI machine. All I can do in in this mechanical tunnel is think, remember, and wonder. I’m nearly thirty, and I’m not where I thought I would be. Cracks run through my bones, making it hard to stand, hard to move. It’s a rare bone disorder I’ve carried since birth, but it tightened its grip last October. Since then, it’s as if a pause has been added between every

This is part of a work of short fiction written in Fall 2018. Fragment VII In Praise of Good Will Brothers and sisters strive to live for an ideal outside of themselves, and within each person, several impulses push life in different directions. Not to follow the Will to Possession, the Will to Knowledge, or the Will to Domination, but to follow the Will to Goodness and grow one’s soul with the fruits of fraternity and devotion. If I do wrong to you, t

This article originally appeared in the March 2025 edition of The Catholic Telegraph . In nature, young wolves leave their birth packs not to assert independence but to find new territory and a mate. Their time as “lone wolves” is a temporary phase, a bridge to renewed life in community. Prolonged solitude, however, spells danger. Without a pack, wolves face starvation, disease and diminished survival odds. While wolves that survive to adulthood endure only a brief solitude,

This is part of a work of short fiction written in Fall 2018. Fragment VI Coherence There is no universal way of looking at things, or, more precisely, none that a human can comprehend, because looking must, by its nature, be performed from one particular position and location, and there must be a looker, and every looker sees in his own way. Each individual reflects the world according to the gaze with which he looks outwards—a selfish gaze, a compassionate gaze, a lustful

This article originally appeared in April 2025 edition of The Catholic Telegraph. In the summer of 2017, I attended a 10-day silent retreat—the first of many, with the longest spanning 33 days. This first retreat introduced me to the unmitigated power of God that comes to us in silence. Vivid dreams filled those ten nights, and long-forgotten memories surfaced in daytime prayer—a common experience among the men at the retreat. There was real spiritual warfare, along with ampl

This is part of a work of short fiction written in Fall 2018. Fragment V The Divine Image Before you were born your face was like a star seen from galaxies away, and if someone were to look closely and focus only on you, it would as if they were staring at the sun. If no one was looking, there would be nothing but light, uniform in infinite space. To return to that from which all things come, the Ground of Being, is to become transparent. This is the kingdom of th

This article originally appeared in the January 2025 edition of The Catholic Telegraph. A few months ago, I was struck by a seemingly ordinary phrase: “The time that we have.”  I’d heard versions of it before, but this time, it stirred something in my mind that wouldn’t go away. My habitual indifference toward daily life was, if only temporarily, extinguished. That is not to say that what replaced it was immediately pleasant, however. Every second was painfully fleeting, ever

This is part of a work of short fiction written in Fall 2018. Fragment IV On Confronting One’s Sins … What a man can do when all inhibitions are removed, when moral norms evaporate and good and bad are replaced by pleasure and frustration—-that man will not believe what he can do. And then when he is restored to his proper state of mind—-then he will know it all too well. The benefit of sin is that it exposes the darker parts of one’s soul. The consequence is that

This article originally appeared in the February 2025 edition of The Catholic Telegraph . Imagine if, overnight, every phone, computer and television stopped working: no notifications, no screens, no newsfeed. You can’t even check your email. The next day would feel like a different world, unfamiliar and unnerving. Even if this silence lasted for just 24 hours, what would it be like? Aside from the apocalyptic hysteria, there would probably be a lot of waiting: in grocery lin

This is part of a work of short fiction written in Fall 2018. Fragment III The Axis of Life A life, at any given moment, may be understood in terms of its experience and experience only. Experience is experience is experience. All perception qualifies equally as experience: feeling one’s head on a pillow is no less experience than feeling fatigued or reflecting on the day that has passed. The sense of one’s identity, memories, thoughts are facets of mental experience and, to

This article will appear in the July 2025 edition of The Catholic Telegraph. “From the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks.” Luke 6:45 No sin has been so shameful for me to confess, so mortifying for me to contemplate, as gossip. It has been in my worst moments that I’ve actively disparaged someone or passively smiled as others spoke slander. When I myself gossip, I feel like Judas; when I casually listen, I feel like pre-conversion Paul who stood by “consenting to [Steph

This is part of a work of short fiction written in Fall 2018. Fragment II Animus            To live is to suffer; to live meaningfully is to live in a way that justifies that suffering. How, even if I lived a life of ultimate suffering, and things went as badly as they possibly could, would my life still be justified, still be one worth living?            Christ was crucified. He was born, he suffered, and he died. He willingly carried the world on his shoulders like an Atlas

This article appeared in the December 2024 edition of The Catholic Telegraph Magazine . On the day of the Crucifixion, the Light of the World was slain by darkness, only to shine again on the brightest of mornings. God the Father led His Son through every step on the Way of the Cross, so that “at the name of Jesus, every knee should bend … and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Phil. 2:10-11). The name of Jesus radiates unmatched power, both in preaching and in

By Ivan Popov This is a work of short fiction written in Fall 2018 Preface , by Iliana Popov. For her brother August.            I have been working on this for a while (a little over a year), and I’m not even the one who wrote it), and the whole time it has been with you in mind. Anyone could read it, but you are the only one that these prayers and confessions are shaped for, like they’re puzzle pieces cut from your reflection. I have watched you grow up, look at the world

This article appeared in the October 2024 edition of The Catholic Telegraph Magazine . After recovering from a recent bad bout of COVID, I found myself reflecting on a cultural malaise that seems to have lingered since 2020: irritability . This pandemic hangover has woven itself into the fabric of our half-digital, half-physical society. Now, I was irritable as a child and vividly remember dreaming, almost daily, of leaving irritable humans behind once I turned 18, to live al

This article appeared in the September 2024 edition of The Catholic Telegraph Magazine . Perpetua and Felicity, Ignatius of Loyola, Gemma...

As originally published in The Catholic Telegraph Magazine Invitation to Prayer: “In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on...

(As stated in text message) Q: “Ending was a bit confusing for me. The collision of Owen and Matthew after the death of Slack in...

I am your reed, sweet shepherd, glad to be. Now, if you will, breathe out your joy in me And make bright song. Or fill me with the soft...