Tag Archives: America

At Sea in America

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horizon 2

The Declaration of Independence is an astounding document. It’s short (you should read it). The majority of its content is actually an enumeration of “injuries and usurpations” by the British monarch King George III against the American Colonies, but the most interesting part is the first three sentences which give a rationale for why it is necessary for “one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another.” The following “unalienable rights” that the Declaration lists—Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness—would become the shorthand for what America stands for, and would be the lifeblood of the next great document to be produced by the new country: the Constitution. G.K. Chesterton once observed, “America is alone in having begun her national career with a definite explanation of what she intended to be. And this is an experiment of the highest historical and philosophical interest.”

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Monarchy*

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regalia

I’m generally not for the new trend of bio-pics about currently living people (Barry, Snowden, The Iron Lady, The Social Network, The Theory of Everything). While depicting figures from the past brings them back to “life” in a fictional sense, depicting living figures seems to me to be robbing them of their own ongoing, real drama in this world. Their story isn’t yet finished, so it’s objectionable to try to tell it—even a portion of it—because the end of their narrative, the conclusion that is necessary to cast the final light over all the rest of it, hasn’t yet come to pass. But I’ve made an exception in watching the Netflix original series The Crown, because the living figure which it depicts is exceptional. Continue reading →

Team America

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If you’ve ever played sports or competed in any way on some kind of team, then you know what it’s like to form a bond with people over a shared purpose or goal. It’s a strange dynamic: a communal identity may form, a pride for the group and its members, a desire to see it succeed. Complete strangers can quickly form deep connections when they’re forced to cooperate to achieve a mutual end — especially when that end is outward oriented, such that a team’s identity depends on a context beyond itself, like a marketplace or a league…or a global stage. Continue reading →

Memorial Day

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national cemetery

Today’s the last Monday in May, which means it’s Memorial Day — the day Americans have set aside to specially remember and honor the men and women who have given their lives in the armed service of the nation. A day that remembers this profound sacrifice from our fallen soldiers, especially on a national level, especially in the face of an ever increasingly selfish, petty, and nihilistic culture is important now more than ever. Continue reading →

The Sentinels Of An Epoch

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Kirche San Romerio

As an American who’s used to seeing dilapidated ‘historic sites’ no older than four hundred years old, I dream of visiting the numerous thousand-plus year old sites of Europe still standing and often functioning in the capacity for which they were built.  And so many of Europe’s historic sites are cathedrals, parish churches, and monasteries.  A quick image search of historic churches of Europe will yield an amazing amount of breathtaking examples of Celtic/English, Frankish/Norman, Greek, Italian, Kievan/Russian, Kartvelian, and Scandinavian Christian architecture, some dating from the fourth century.  At the center of nearly every ancient or medieval town across Europe stands one of these jewels.  A note on a compilation of historic European churches by the Huffington Post quipped, “Churches seem to be nearly as abundant in Europe as drugstores are in Manhattan.”  A comparison like that once again highlights the obvious difference in the scenery of America and Europe. Continue reading →