Why would someone who has lived nearly their entire life disabled, at the mercy of doctors’ surgeries, in need of a variety of technical apparatus like walkers, braces and wheelchairs, that lived through great physical pain, hope that when they die, they would enter into the kingdom of God still disabled? Such was the case […]

Images of the work described in this piece can be found below the article in the attached slide show. My brother Jules turned 30 this past Saturday so it was the perfect excuse to grab some coffee and, braving the January cold, head to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  It was a family tradition in our household […]

Some may know the story, but when I was in eighth grade I got in trouble for using liquid paper to graffiti my English teacher’s bookcase with the term “u suck.” I know—quite clever. The idiotic turn was met with a challenge from my teacher: I could either read “To Kill a Mockingbird” or “Julius […]

Like so many of you, one of the many joys of the Christmas season is to be able to share a meal with friends and family. I am ‘twice blessed,’ to quote the Bard, as my brother Jules is a chef. Every year I can expect forkful after forkful of carefully prepared food and it […]

Two years ago, Fr. Dan invited me to co-host a Lenten Film Series that explored the cinematic interpretations of the Catholic priesthood. This is the introduction to the second film in the series, John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt. The most ubiquitous symbol of our faith, particularly our Catholic tradition, is the crucifix—the cross. We often speak […]

I find it fitting that on this Dia de los Muertos, or All Souls Day, I’m reminded of having recently picked up and re-read Walt Whitman’s seminal book of poetry, Leaves of Grass. The poetry book that arguably is at once the first truly modern book of poetry and certainly the first truly American book […]

The River of Life and The African Queen If you’ve read my writing or have had a conversation with me for longer than ten minutes,  you know I am a big movie guy. My wife and I will go to the movies about once a week, preferably Sunday evenings if our schedules allow for it. […]

For anyone who has ever attended one of our plays at the Academy of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, particularly our comedies, you know I love to fill them with music, particularly American soul music from the 1960s and 1970s. I’m a 1990s kid which meant I was at the epicenter of the Napster scandal and the […]

  “Never talk about art, unless you can show it,” said my former professor. In that spirit, all items mentioned in this post can be viewed in the gallery below. The day after Christmas this past year, our first without our mother, my visiting brother, Jules, — he was living in Philadelphia at the time […]

Welcome to the new blog on the intersection between faith and culture entitled Arcadia! I’m so happy you’re here and hopefully will stick around bi-weekly as we delve into some of the ways that our seemingly ordinary lives are enriched by our greater Catholic consciousness and imagination often found in the culture around us as […]