(Rembrandt, The Philosopher in Meditation , Public Domain) Dear Friends, In the coming months I will be shifting my occasional writings...

The Return of the Prodigal Son, Rembrandt, 1667 The New Testament prefers one word over all others when discussing God. The word is...

Giulio Carpioni, The Nymph Liropi Brings her son Narcissus to Tiresias (Sapphic verse, for E.) Then the prophet said to me, “man, you...

T.S. Eliot c. 1923 Eliot, old pre-beat hero, lines cake-dense like new cake crumbed and rolled about heavy, heavy, until the eyes go...

Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Winter Landscape I ran into him on one of those rolling hills that Ontario has on one of those bright days after...

Jan Steen, life of Man, 1665 Do you presume to own what you did not make and so to have in hand your body, its all-- and so to have in...

(Image by George Desipris) I lied to you and kept back one bowl, a gleaming one, ancient enamel. The rim is drawn in kufic cursive, the...

(Photo by Travis Rupert) Old bricks twist on shoes the same way when the sidewalk is even rougher and we walk in the street, and the...

Rembrandt van Rijn, TheStorm on the Sea of Galilee. 1633. The cold rain of October has moved in today. In the past week thousands have...

Benjamin West. The Choice of Hercules. 1764. (Public Domain) There are, at a minimum, four different domains in which we should seek to...

Gustave Moreau, Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra. 1875-76 A FEW YEARS AGO I realized, almost out of the blue, that envy is perhaps my...

The Geographer by Johannes Vermeer, 1669 When Charles Lindbergh landed his monoplane in Paris on May 21, 1927, marking the first time a...

(Queen Elizabeth II, image courtesy of Pixabay) The Queen is dead, God save the King! Queen Elizabeth II, the first and only monarch I...

(The Young Seamstress by Joseph Israels, 1880) It is not easy to sit with hard things, even impossible things, when we find them in our...

(The Bitter Potion--Adriaen Brouwer c 1637) For a moment, if you please, I beg you stop I have heard your screeching and felt your blows...

(Jan Steen, Prayer before the Meal, 1660) People of religious faith, and those without it often frame their differences in terms of...

I have recently published a novel that I wrote nearly ten years ago, and which has been sitting in my (digital) trunk ever since. The...

(Murillo, Christ Healing the Paralytic, 1667-1670) For nearly two years the world has been gripped by a pandemic that has upended every...

(Painting, Vanitas by Harmen Steenwijk) I saw a man coming who was green and soft like moss--earthy, earthen, smelling of earth,...

Hendrik Willem Mesdag (d. 1915) The art of sailing is born of the impossible. It is impossible, by absolutely any means, to sail directly...