Why milestones are milestones

To call an event a milestone and mark it with some little ritual is to affirm of the meaning of life…

The (sort-of) semiotics of milestones

To call an act/event a milestone and mark it with some little ritual is an affirmation of the meaningfulness of life… (Revised into a somewhat more readable post here.)

On the papal encyclical “Saved by hope” (revised)

The Holy See has just published Spe salvi, the new encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI. Dealing with the Christian doctrine of hope, it can be found on the Vatican website, or through the link on Papal Encyclicals.net. The following, of course, presupposes that one has read or will thereafter read the new document.

Is there a happily ever after? (Barkings, no. 4)

To my friend P__, after she texted that she could no longer imagine a happily ever after:

Me, I think there’s no happily ever after, only home ever after–sometimes happy, sometimes sad, but mostly in-between.  Maybe the question is, when it’s in-between, are you home?

Why does doctrine matter? part 1 of 2

…Weren’t we just bandying concepts, forming intellectual structures that were fascinating, but in the end, didn’t really matter? Wasn’t Christianity a mere mass of ideas, existing somewhere in a cloud of speculation, but having no link whatsoever with the life we lead? If it’s so real–as indeed, we believed it was–why was it complicated?…