Like a Virgin Mud-streaked Bernadette, witness to the apparition of Our Lady of the Grotto, is the illogical face of faith, and she was sanctified and reviled for it. Bernadette was either holy or mad, and nothing in between. “I was born in the mud. With my feet on...
A surrealist’s dream Salvador Dali painted Christ above his own Catalan coast. The Jesus story is endlessly adaptable to the contours of our life, so that in the end we see our own face reflected. SALVADOR DALI SAID HE WAS inspired by a “cosmic” dream in which Christ...
The false intimacy of collusion When is revelation a form of intimacy, when is disclosure oversharing, and when is a personal story designed to enrol the listener into an us-versus-them dynamic? My Danish friend Lisbeth once told me about how she confronted that...
In defense of denial Denial arises organically to prevent overwhelm and protect psychic integrity. For grief, we can substitute trauma. “Denial helps us to pace our feelings of grief. There is grace in denial. It is nature’s way of letting in only as much as we can...
murder on the page “Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it —wholeheartedly — and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.” Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch It’s intriguing to guess what Sir...
