INSIDE OF A CATHOLIC, IT'S TOO DARK TO READ: Summer reading recs 2011; I am involved.

TRUST FALLS: My Inside Catholic column, on trust, mistrust, and conversion. I'm honestly not really satisfied with this one, but you all might find something interesting or useful in it--and there is fire, so hey. Please ignore the headline, which is a sardonic hangover from a completely different earlier draft.

"MARY, IN THE GLASS COFFIN OF THE MUSEUM." My column at Inside Catholic.

"A GREAT RECKONING IN A LITTLE ROOM": My Inside Catholic column, on confession.

"CRADLE WILL ROCK": My column for Inside Catholic; it's about cradle Catholics and how they can be awesome.

"TOLSTOY DIES, GOES TO AMERICA": I review The Last Station at Inside Catholic.

"SIX IMPERFECT METAPHORS FOR CONVERSION." My latest at Inside Catholic.

"LIVE THROUGH THIS": My column at Inside Catholic. The Catholic Church is not a box of answers.

(Also, "goon" is not a typo!)

"HEAVEN CAN WAIT": Me, at Inside Catholic, in which I discuss Hell, American character, slapping your mama, and the centurion who speared the side of Christ:

There's a terrific moment in the TV show House, in which the irascible and brilliant Dr. Greg House is explaining to a lapsed Catholic subordinate why he doesn't believe in the afterlife. House, with all the self-lacerating irony that actor Hugh Laurie can impart to the character, says, "I would hate to think that all of this was just a test."

House is right -- and he's offered a crucial diagnosis of one form of Catholic piety. There's a way of thinking about the afterlife that makes this life, here, irrelevant and even inexplicable. Catholics will sometimes argue against universalism -- the comforting belief that all people must be saved, because God would never be so cruel as to damn somebody's grandma -- by asking, "If everyone is saved, why even bother to do the right thing here on earth?"

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"ROMOEROTICISM": My take on the collision of Corpus Christi and Gay Pride, at Inside Catholic....

INSIDE OF A CATHOLIC, IT'S TOO DARK TO READ. Summer books recommendations... hey, I'm in this!

"WE'LL BURN THAT BRA WHEN WE COME TO IT." My Inside Catholic book column, on Florence King's When Sisterhood Was in Flower.

"SUBLIMITY NOW!": My latest piece for Inside Catholic. Fire, Burke, ice, unicorns, and a man in his underpants waving a gun!

THE WHIRLIGIG OF TIME BRINGS IN HIS REVENGES. Inside Catholic reposted an article I did for them way back in 2002, when they were still Crisis magazine. The piece is called "Outside Narnia: Christianity and Children's Fantasy," and it was my attempt to defend non- and even anti-Christian fantasy books while also promoting a few fun or even great Catholic works which had been swamped by the flood of Lewistolkein.

Re-reading it... wow, I would not write this article the same way today! Every column-inch of the praise for Tamora Pierce is humiliating to read, and in general, this is just more "pi" and ethics-y than I'd want to write now. On the other hand, the parts where I recommend John Bellairs, Margot Benary-Isbert, and (especially) Ottfried Preussler, and where I defend Susan Price (author of the world's most nihilist children's books!), are still fine.

Anyway... uh... there it is! Can you tell I'm not strong enough or humble enough to keep my old diaries?

"DEFINING THE RELATIONSHIP": My new piece at Inside Catholic. Quick summary: "Do you have a personal relationship with God?" is a reductive and kind of cloyingly Hallmark question; but it might still help us understand times when we're angry at God, when we feel abandoned by God, and when we feel an ironic distance from God.

THE SERENITY PLAYER: In which I tell you why you should read The Glass Bead Game.

...There is no term in this book that is not interrogated: not the serenity Knecht offers a distraught Plinio, nor the exalted experience and self-direction he claims for himself at the end of the book. No final answer is given to the book's underlying question: What is the life of the mind for?

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WHEN I WAS CRUEL: My article on Alan Moore's A Small Killing is up at Inside Catholic.

INSIDE OF A CATHOLIC, IT'S TOO DARK TO READ: My book column for Inside Catholic is on Heloise and Abelard, in that order.

(And yes, I've been waiting to use this post title for weeks.)

"IN PRAISE OF DISENCHANTMENT": My Inside Catholic column, on superstition.

I've got a four-leaf clover
And it ain't done me a single lick of good --
I'm still a drunk and I'm still a loser
Living in a lousy neighborhood
-- Old 97's, "Four-Leaf Clover"

"THE CONSCIENCE OF MANNERS": My Inside Catholic book column, on Miss Manners....