How Shall We Begin?

I had to think long and hard about the name of this blog. Well, it's not a particularly brilliant name for a blog -- it's just adequate for my purposes. I wanted to convey a sense of the arcane, sacred, and abiding, all the while not taking myself too seriously. It's hard to capture those qualities in a short title.

Some of the fondest times I've had, and continue to have, is the joy of routing around in a library or antique store with very old books. Those who love books like I do know very well that peculiar scent of aged paper, glue, binding, and ink, giving way to the destructive forces of heat and moisture. To some it's just moldy paper; to me it's a waft of heavenly delight.

But we can't stop there. The smell is one thing, but the look and feel-- oh! the feel of those vulnerable pages, slightly browned at the edges and yellowish all over. The sewn pages and cloth-covered bindings seem to be made of better stuff than most books today, signaling to us unfortunate moderns that it's been commissioned, as if by the Muses themselves, to remain beyond 20 years, in spite of fad or fashion.

Now I can't really communicate that experience in this medium, and some don't care one whit about book knowledge. So this site may be boring to multitudes more than beneficial to a few. But I feel no duty to convert all to this rare delight. Therefore all are welcome, but only some will find pleasure for the soul. And that's okay with me.

But it's more than books. As we all know there's no end to reading, and there's a point where humility must reign in on the insatiable thirst to know deeper and broader things. The love for the Triune God, and faith in His eternal Word, fuel my love to learn as such. The love of the catholic religion, the Church of Christ, and the Lord of the Church, make my affair with reading old books that much more alive. There is credit to St. Augustine's dictum about faith seeking understanding. Just as the man who will not receive Christ might feel the warmth of J.S. Bach's work, for he is still in God's image, cannot not know the ecstasy and the longing there like the believer can.

The great (and good) books of all time shape the soul pliable to God's will, but harden the self-reliant and faithless. Whether naturally from Plato, or supernaturally from St. Thomas Aquinas, God's truth beckons us to move from where we are to where we should be. It's more than knowing, it's faith working in love that we're after. Knowledge in and of itself is good, but man isn't a mere computer -- he's of divine origin with imagination and the capacity to love and serve. So my hope is to move beyond trivial pursuit to the joy of knowing Him who grants us the privilege to know.

So, dear reader, the most I can promise is that I will try to blog about those grand and eternal delights, from the brightest of antiquity (and some of our time), for the sheer delight of coming to a fuller understanding of ourselves and the God who made us.

Saying all this is not to preclude levity and mundane matters at all -- I'm not that austere and probably would be offensive to the most pious men at times, but I assure you the intent is to keep us human and honest about our plight.

Blessings to you all.

St. Worm