These Stone Walls' Second Annual Stuck Inside Literary Award
. . . We are caught up on this same road. Whether we know it or not, whether we accept it or not, our entire life as individuals and as a Catholic community comes down to one crucial element: we are either instruments for the proliferation of evil or instruments for its defeat. None of the petty squabbles, devastating scandals, and addictive diversions that muddle us in the muck on this long, long road will come to mean very much in the end. We are instruments, and instruments of what depends entirely on our response to grace. This is the tale of The Lord of the Rings. J.R.R.Tolkien brings his characters again and again to the very brink of hopelessness, only to teach them - and us - that there is always hope. We cannot accept that there was, and is, a Christ without accepting that one true fact. To be without hope means to admit there is no grace at work in the world, and that is simply pointless, and demonstrably untrue. . . .
Downton Abbey Blue Bloods Touch Falling Skies Upon Criminal Minds
. . . It's time to come clean and confess. I owe TSW readers the truth, and just can't go on living this secret any longer. I've been seeing someone. I can't really say she's my soul mate just yet, but I find her mesmerizing and alluring in her own peculiar way. She lives far beyond my state in life, but now I feel incomplete without her. There is little so painful as unrequited love. There! I've said it! So, who is this new spark of joy in my life? Why, who else could she be but Lady Grantham, the Dowager Countess of Downton Abbey? Yes, yes, I know she's old enough to be my mother, but - like justice - love is blind, and sometimes it's deaf and dumb, too. Most people who spend five minutes with the elder Lady Grantham want to flee for cover, but I see beyond this matriarchal conniver to a heart laid bare by a looming threat: the winds of change. The incomparable British actress, Maggie Smith, plays the role to perfection. . . .