Risking Enchantment

<p></p> <p>“I am not a reformer nor an embalmer! I am not a ‘reformer’ (by exercise of power) since it seems doomed to Sarumanism. But ‘embalming’ has its own punishments.”</p> <p>-J.R.R. Tolkien</p> <p> </p> <p>For...

<p>“I'm capable of a great jerk, an effort, and then a relaxation—but steady, every-day goodness is beyond me. I must be a moral kangaroo!”</p> <p>-Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell</p> <p> </p> <p>In our final...

<p>“Joyful singing and music is likewise a constant invitation to believers and to all people of good will to work hard to give humanity a future rich in hope.”</p> <p>-Pope Benedict XVI</p> <p> </p> <p>In this episode...

<p>"We are watchful for works written in a contemporary idiom that yet reach the roots of fundamental questions, that honor the almost three-thousand-year-long conversations committed to these questions, and that incite...

<p>“What does the Lord want of me? Of course, this is always a great adventure, but life can be successful only if we have the courage to be adventurous, trusting that the Lord will never leave me alone, that the Lord...

<p>“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”</p> <p> </p> David Copperfield, Charles Dickens <p> </p> <p>We are joined for...

<p>But if there’s nothing, if there’s nothing<br> Then what’s that song that keeps hounding me?<br> In the still dark of the morning<br> Just one more cradle down the creek<br> Au revoir my little memories<br> Then tell...

<p>Welcome back to Risking Enchantment! For our first episode of 2024, Rachel and Phoebe discuss the place that poetry has in our everyday lives, its importance in our faith, and why it’s good to learn poetry by heart...

<p></p> <p> </p> <p>"It is emptiness like the hollow in the reed, the narrow restless emptiness which can have only one destiny: to receive the piper’s breath and to utter the song that is in his heart." - Caryll...

<p>After an unexpected hiatus, Risking Enchantment is back. In this episode we’re taking a look at some classic family movies and what they can tell us about our attitudes towards growing up, and our modern tendency to...

<p>“Fiction is hard if not impossible to write because fiction is so very much an incarnation art…The fact is that the materials of the fiction are the humblest. Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of...

<p>“The perfect stillness of the night was thrilled by a more solemn silence. The darkness held a presence that was all the more felt because it was not seen. I could not any more have doubted that He was there than...

<p>"The man on his holiday becomes the man he might have been, the man he could have been, had things worked out a little differently. All men are equal on their holidays: all are free to dream their castles without...

<p></p> <p>"First become a person" - St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross</p> <p>This bonus episode is the recording of a talk I gave over this summer for the Youth 2000 summer festival on Catholic womanhood.</p> <p>The...

<p>“Healing is impossible in loneliness; it is the opposite of loneliness. Conviviality is healing. To be healed we must come with all the other creatures to the feast of Creation.” - Wendell Berry</p> <p> </p> <p>In...