Yes, I’m still sinus’d up. I’m mostly better, but I just can’t shake this thing. I did manage to get through choir on Wednesday night, but my voice felt pretty shredded afterwards. I’ve been a little hoarse for most of a week and a half, although I’ve never actually lost my voice per se. There’ve been several days this week when my hoarseness did let up (which is why I went to choir), but the sinus headaches kick in when the voice starts feeling better. I love you guys and I love podcasting, but I’m not going to try to read with a hoarse voice or a headache right under my eyes!
If you’re on Audible, they’re having their half-price sale. You can get huge amounts of Bujold, Wodehouse, etc. One real gem is a collection of C.S. Lewis’ radio talks on The Four Loves. Obviously, this primary version is shorter and more generalized than the book. However, it’s also recordings of C.S. Lewis. On the radio. Does it get more awesome!? (It’s also proof that the BBC doesn’t always lose stuff and reuse the tapes… heh heh.)
If you want to listen to stuff free, you know there are tons of podcasts and free audiobooks and audio dramas out there. Sffaudio and Sonitus Sanctus are very good sources for finding what’s being produced, and of course Librivox is always a storehouse of good listening. Forgotten Classics is just starting a new one, too, so you can hop on that train.
With Anglican Use Catholics in the news as the new Anglican Ordinariate gets rolling, you might want to listen to the erudite and lively scriptural talks/classes given by the pastor of the Anglican Use parish of Our Lady of the Atonement. I know I’ve recommended these talks before, but there’s always new ones. (The Acts of the Apostles is ongoing at present.) It’s good stuff: educational, spiritual, and not at all dry. (Scroll down past the sermons to see all the selections — though the sermons are good too, if you’re in that kind of mood.)
Don’t worry. It’s not gory, and most of the length is info about his life and what was going on at the time. I excerpted it from a much longer history text from Victorian times. I’m only sorry that I don’t have access (not being a university student) to some of the Early English texts bearing on the matter. (Mostly the James Hind pamphlet containing O’Brien’s last speech on the gibbet.)
Btw, nowadays we know from the inquest held on O’Brien’s father’s death in 1623 that O’Brien was born at Tuogh (Tower Hill), a mile south of Cappamore. (Look it up on Google Maps.) His family was of the O’Brien Arra, and they held 2000 acres of land. “Albert” is his religious name, taken when he joined the Dominicans; “Terence” or “Toirdhealbhach” is his given name.
Also btw, the reason they kept talking about these folks as Confederates is because the folks fighting Cromwell were the Catholic Confederation. They fought as Royalists loyally supporting Charles I. (Incredibly typical for Irish history. The Irish also fought for Richard III after the Tudors took over, and so on.)
My sinuses have been dripping, and my job has been gripping.
You might like to listen to BBC7 tomorrow, or for the next week or so. They’ll be broadcasting a half-hour show about J. Meade Falkner, medievalist and factory exec, as well as the author of three superb books of adventure, horror, and mystery. They just broadcast The Lost Stradivarius by him; and you can listen to The Nebuly Coat here, under Completed Novels.
They’ll also have on the sad radio play about the life of the late Delia Derbyshire, pioneer in sound effects and music who was tragically unappreciated until the end of her life. Fans of Doctor Who owe her big time.
An Introduction to the Devout Life continues, as we discuss socializing and what to wear. Hint: the saint thinks you can figure out how to dress yourself. He is not your mommy.
On the Soul and the Resurrection continues. St. Macrina discusses Jesus’ parable of Dives the rich man and Lazarus the poor man, and why it’s good to get your suffering done on Earth. Then just in time for Halloween, we even have a patristic discussion of ghosts!
St. Macrina is such a theology/science geek. I mean, would this even occur to the average person on their deathbed? She’s either awfully tough-minded or giving her brother Greg a hard time to get him out of his grief rut. “Woooooooo… here I am on my deathbed, speculating about ghooooooosts….”
I have to say that this is one of those stories with a great start and then… Mack installs some Mack truck-sized plot holes toward the end. The ending requires touching faith in legalities and a total disregard of how economics works, as well as convenient weakness and strength on the part of certain characters. (Frankly, there’s absolutely no reason why you can’t disappear a guy who’s been drunk off his butt for a good six months, and every reason why villains would have made contingency plans.) I think the basic problem is that Reynolds created novel-sized problems in a short story, so he chose to end it by authorial fiat; and the magazine editors decided they were fine with that. But hey, it’s entertainment. You’re happy to see a happy ending, and the editors are happy to have a story of no more than the required length.
An Introduction to the Devout Life continues, as St. Francis talks a bit about external or bodily mortification, including stuff like fasting, abstinence, etc. (And hairshirts.) He’s not really all that hep on mortification as an extreme sport. In fact, he’s got a much better idea.
So it’s very plain to see how St. Therese of Lisieux was influenced by St. Francis de Sales in developing her “Little Way”. If eating whatever is set before you, regardless of your own wants, is more of a mortification than extreme fasting, the same principle quickly carries over to other preferences in daily life.
Of course, it could be pointed out that they’re both very French in thinking this way about food preferences. I’m sure the Food Network foodies would agree on how much a mortification of desires this would be to a gourmet.
On the Soul and the Resurrection continues, as St. Macrina moves back into more speculative territory. She really seems to have liked the idea of the soul swanning around in the world in atoms. Well, that hadn’t all been worked out yet, so she had a right to speculate.
We also get some very fun similes, which she uses for how the soul hangs out with atoms, but which St. Greg points out are more suited to proving the possibility of resurrection in the exact same body.
We also have more fun with Greco-Roman speculation about the antipodes. Apparently some people, pagans and otherwise, thought Hades was logically on the opposite part of the globe to where they lived, and that this constituted “the underworld”. If St. M had believed this, she’d have believed her soul was somewhere out in the Pacific Ocean between New Zealand and South America. So it’s a good thing she knew souls were immaterial and not bound by place! (Antipodemap.com figures this stuff out for you, btw.)
“Medal of Honor” continues, as our protagonist lives the life of the hero he’s not. But he’s starting to figure out that he may not have made a good bargain.
An Introduction to the Devout Life continues, with advice on what to do about bad friendships, some more general talk about friendships good and bad, and your duties to friends and yourself.
