Donald Mengay

For decades I used to ask my students where heaven was, then hell, and predictably they responded as one might expect, up and down respectively. Occasionally one would remark that there is no heaven or hell, but by and large their topographical sense was automatic, and conventional. There are, no doubt, many reasons for it. After all, I used to query them in the context of reading Homer's Iliad and Odyssey . The poet positions the gods on the heights of Mount Olympus, a form

My husband and I have been entertaining guests since we were first together, going on forty-five years. I did the cooking during that time primarily, for many hundreds of guests by now, preparing no doubt many hundreds of meals. They talk these days about the difficulty of finding common ground across a fractured divide, but I can say with certainty that most people, no matter the politics, are quite particular eaters, though it depends.    My tour of kitchen duty didn't star

Most years a birthday comes and goes as just another day. There's a bit more fuss in a milestone year, but as a rule the day passes with little fanfare other than a restaurant meal and store-bought cake. This year was noticeably different.    Some people relish the attention of their day. They even drop hints it's coming or are vocal about its approach. I'm not that way. Corny as it sounds I treasure the everyday; I make a point of appreciating it; the more mundane and produc

If anyone needs proof of the way christian writers lifted passages, including from each other, they might take a look at the biblical...

Rashid Khalidi points out in his history of modern Palestine that the repatriation of the Holy Land by European Jews was a euro-style...

In his NYT article, "How to Survive the Trump Years With Your Spirit Intact," David Brooks paints a picture of Western history in tones...

In a recent article in the New York Times , David Brooks draws a distinction between a classical ethos, which he characterizes as "pagan"...

When I first heard about it in 1994 I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I considered its founder, Jeffrey Jorgensen––a person who goes...

The Thirty Years War clarified what happens when christian fundamentalism rules, catholic or protestant. Up to eight million people were...

In the part of Ohio where I'm from, and in that part of the country generally, being raised religious was and is largely a given. We're...

I wanted to visit Easter Island since 1965, when I first read Kon Tiki  in fifth grade. Thor Heyerdahl piqued my interest, though only...

One thing you discover when you decide to revisit an author's works is, well, a lot. I got the idea recently to return to the novels of...

Does anyone read Ulysses today? That's what a friend asked a short while back, a rhetorical remark insisting, Oh god, no. Why would you...

To reverse the truism There's no place like home to something like Home is no-place is useful in privileging people and connections,...

I've been traveling lately, one of my favorite things. To pack and go; interrupt the routine; experience something new and unexpected; be...

The words alone are cloyingly sweet, two categories so multiple they're almost meaningless.  Like "god," "woman," "man," and "love," each...

This isn't a post about palm trees, parrots, or torrential rains, but it could easily involve those things. It isn't about The Tropics...

Aristotle argued that tragedy, a story ending in a death, unlike a comedy which ends in a marriage, is the more impactful of the two...

Champagne, confetti, feasts, favors, noisemakers, sparklers, fireworks, kisses, and more, including more champagne, nothing of which has...

The interesting thing about humans, especially from the perspective of a post-humanist like me, is how they work against their own...