Shannon Costello

I avoid serious literature when sick, but this time I coached myself through it with frequent Harry Potter breaks.
No Name was criticized because one character, Magdalen, instead of being properly punished for her wickedness, is allowed to repent and live happily ever after.  Magdalen’s deceit and schemes cause righteous persons to shrink from her.  While [...]

“They played one piece of music which lasted forty minutes.  It stopped three times by the way; and we all thought it was done each time, and clapped our hands, rejoiced to be rid of it.  But on it went again, to our great surprise and mortification, till we gave it up in despair, and [...]

It’s never a good sign when you stagger out of the classroom you are using and are transported to the health office in a wheelchair.

I am interested in how one should go about deciding when a passage of scripture is to be taken literally.
Augustine talks about layers of interpretation:  “But just as, I think, they err greatly who are of opinion that none of the records of affairs in that kind of writings mean anything more than that they [...]

I won!  Well, ok, I didn’t actually finish first, but the awards committee decided that I should receive the first place prize for my “extraordinary efforts in preparation”.  They “attached special importance to my vision for a world in which exercise is important” and said that I had “created a new climate in the Baltimore [...]

It’s sort of hard for me to see Chicago’s failure to snag the 2016 Olympics as an Obama failure.  All four contending cities had governmental higher-ups on hand, including the King of Spain.  And it seems that South America has never hosted the Olympics before?  I think Americans’ perspective may be somewhat skewed.  Go Brazil!