New Publication

For anyone who is interested, my article in New Blackfriars has made it to print. Entitled "Recovering Rahner's Concept of Being in Spirit in the  World," it is an essay heavily influenced by my great teacher and friend Father Terrance Klein. My dear friend Jane Dryden also lurks in the background, not so much in an explicit way but, rather, as the muse who inspired me to dig deeper into philosophical reflection.

Writing, whether as a blogger or as a teacher or as a hopeful scholar, is a profoundly intimate process. It tries to put into words what seems to be almost impossible to express. Re-reading my own writing recently, I kept saying to myself "Duns! You could have said this better, you could have been more clear, you could have done this....". Alas, it is the fragility of language and something I will have to struggle with forever. Writing, in this sense, is trying to make explicit what roils implicitly in my heart and mind, an effort to make exterior something that is at the innermost center of my heart.

I say with all honesty that I am neither a great mind nor a great scholar. I think I work hard, that I have an open and capable mind, and a willing heart. I love to share with others the riches of the Catholic faith and one way of doing that is through sustained reflection on the very foundations of that faith. This act of sharing is a form of communion, of bringing different voices together and trying to discern the common refrain they sing. So conceived, it is my most fervent hope that anything I write or teach finds its end in making faith reasonable, in making faith credible, and in showing how faith shapes and transforms the human life.

I include a screen-shot of the essay that is published as a preview on the New Blackfriars webpage. I hope I'm not violating any copyright laws. If I am, I'll take it down immediately.