Servants of the Secret Fire: Practices

Introducing The Good Reverend Pudgemuffin

My favorite gentleman in the blogosphere is currently the Good Reverend Pudgemuffin at Are You There God? It's me, Atheist. He is a wonderful and impassioned seeker of Truth with regards to the existence of God, and from his blog's title, you can guess what side of the fence he falls. He is a fellow Ashevillain, and I highly regard his thinking and enjoy his irreverent skepticism which is humorous and critical without being snarkily polemical. Inspired, I wrote a lengthy reply to one of his entries, and he in turn devoted a whole entry in response to my response . Not to be outdone, I composed a response to the response's response, which I planned to keep hidden within his comments, but it far exceeded (more than double) the character limits. So thus ....

Exploring Tolkien's Theology: The Battle for Middle-earth by Fleming Rutledge

Thematically, Fleming Rutledge's The Battle for Middle-earth: Tolkien's Divine Design in The Lord of the Rings (Eerdmans Publishing, 2004) makes an excellent companion piece to Stratford Caldecott's The Power of the Ring (Crossroad Publishing, 2005) which I read earlier this year and inspired the formation of The Servants of the Secret Fire. Both books unveil Christian themes in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings —Caldecott also explores Tolkien's other writings—what makes Rutledge's work unique from other Christian explorations of Tolkien is that Rutledge follows the narrative as it is written of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to follow a deeper narrative, beneath the surface of the text, of the hidden battle between The Powers of Evil, Sin and Death, and God in the interior spirit and will of the characters. Rutledge has done more to make real the supernatural drama of LotR , and frankly the Christian life, than I've previously encounte...

St Ignatius de Loyola, Oremus!

Today is the feast day of Saint Ignatius de Loyola , founder of the Society of Jesus ( Societas Iesu ) , commonly known as the Jesuits. As God's instrument, St Ignatius brought into the world an order that has done immeasurable miraculous good in order to bring about the Kingdom of God, given us great preachers, teachers and theologians, and by his own writings, given all powerful inspiration and meditations on strengthening our spiritual life. Of his writings, Ignatius' "Contemplation on Divine Love" I find the most powerful, unifying all that it is to be mindful of God's unspeakably glorifying presence in our life, and I offer it for your own meditations today, below. May St Ignatius and all the saints continue to pray for us and guide us by the power of God's grace.

Our Lady of Ashes

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