Per Ipsum

…each of you is saying, "I belong to Paul," or "I belong to Apollos," or "I belong to Cephas," or "I belong to Christ." Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? 1 Corinthians 1:12-13 It was distressing to hear those words proclaimed during a weekend of unprecedented division and conflict. Not much has changed in the 2000 years since then. Two of my least favorite words are liberal and conservative, which have become code words in the culture wars. It is one thing when they are applied to a specific idea and quite another when they are used to describe a person. They are pronounced by pundits and speakers as if they can sum up a human being's entire body of thought and belief with one word. So and so is a liberal. Conservatives hate women. Liberals want to ruin the country. Some people talk as if "conservative" means virtuous and "liberal" means depraved. Some people talk as though "conservative"

Silence is good for the soul, essential to recollection, and conducive to humility. Remember Our Lord's silence throughout His life and during the hours of His passion. Elizabeth Leseur            I discovered Leseur's writing only recently and was struck by the simplicity of her spirituality. She begins a series of "retreats," each with a resolution, with Silence. She has a resolution for each of twelve months. The beginning of a new year struck me as a good time to consider them one by one. When I see the word silence, I tend to think of it in terms of shutting out noise. Turn off the TV. Shut out the news.  Retreat to a spot where there is no sound. Avoid social media. Get off the Internet. Quiet your insides. Those are all things to do . That isn't what she means. Leseur writes about being silent. Her emphasis is on not talking, and particularly about not talking about herself. For years I've grappled with something that skirts the edges of