Two weeks ago I wrote that political anxiety is easy to consume and that it is not the same thing as citizenship.¹ The argument still stands. This is the next ordinary step. Before we talk about plans and friends and watchfulness, we have to ask a question that sounds almost too small: Are you registered?…
A Name Short Enough to Use I wondered what little birthday present President Trump might have for me. There is usually some tidbit on Truth Social for one and all, something that makes me stop and think, Oh, what is this? He did not disappoint. China has never been abstract to me. I have followed…
Tomorrow I will mark another year of life. A birthday turns the mind toward gifts received. I find myself asking another question: **What gift can I give Him?**¹ Venerable Fulton J. Sheen, who will be beatified later today in St. Louis, wrote of Holy Communion a sentence that has stayed with me: **“We give Him…
Learn the Tool. Judge the Plant Late Friday night my brother and I spent nearly an hour on artificial intelligence, data centers, jobs, water, and electricity. We do not usually spend Friday that way. The subject was on his mind. It is on many people’s minds. A teacher at a noted boys’ school in Alexandria…
Forgiveness Is Not Acquittal Our Lord commands us to forgive our enemies. He does so first because we ourselves have been forgiven an immeasurable debt and must become like him. In commanding this, he also frees the injured soul from bondage to hatred and the desire for private vengeance. That command is absolute. It is…
Inherit the Remains In March 2024 I put a short item in the Fides et Ratio archive under the title “Sweetwater Turbine Dumping Ground.” Sweetwater had become home to thousands of unwanted turbine blades. The promise of clean energy had reached the end of its useful life, and the remains were accumulating in West Texas.¹…