Minute Particulars

Active love is always directed at somebody or something in particular. Abstract love of humanity is professed by Ivan Karamazov’s Grand Inquisitor,  by Rakitin, and eventually by Ivan Karamazov’s devil. When it comes to meeting…

This Is Because That Is…

I am spending my mornings reading the riveting new book by Gary Saul Morson, Wonder Confronts Certainty: Russian Writers on the Timeless Questions and Why Their Answers Matter. A short while back, I posted a…

By Little and Little

One makes a better world by what Dostoevsky liked to call “microscopic actions.” When you walk down the street, Zossima tells the other monks, don’t scowl. A kindly look can shift a person’s mood and…

Gurus, Guides, Teachers

Hindus make a distinction between what are called upagurus and what are called satgurus. A satguru is what we’ve been talking about here as the guru; it’s the one who is the doorway. … Along…

Dear Anya

Thank you for your cool list of queries which I saw after I got back from vacation at Blue-Eye, Missouri! I will start  with an easy one:  “Favorite Book”— The Brothers Karamazovby Fyodor Dostoevskyas translated by…

Two Alyoshas

Dostoevsky’s—There was something in him that told one, that convinced one (and it was so all his life afterwards) that he did not want to be a judge of men, that he would not take…

Then and Now

“Brothers, do not be afraid of men’s sin, love man also in his sin, for this likeness of God’s love is the height of love on earth. Love all of God’s creation, both the whole…

Dostoevsky

Dostoevsky’s art is literally prophetic. He is not prophetic in the sense of predicting the future, but in a  truly biblical sense, for he untiringly denounces the fall of the people of God back into…