Abraham's Journey
By Charlie Johnston In the weeks before Napoleon’s invasion of Moscow, the aristocratic and military grandees of Russia both shined and stank like the proverbial rotten mackerel in the moonlight. Ambitious young grandees and lieutenants schemed against their superiors (and betters) hoping to usurp their authority by sliming them. Self-absorbed, arrogant little snots either did […]
Read More Lazarus, Come Forth!(I repeat today what has become an Easter Tradition for me – my little story about Pontius Pilate and the Lord. Some, over the years, have commented on how real the death scene feels. I took it almost verbatim from an actual event I participated in. What follows is fiction. I used the literary […]
Read More EpitaphBy Charlie Johnston I drove from west central Illinois today up to the Chicago area. It was pleasantly nostalgic to be driving roads I had driven hundreds of times before. I passed by places where we had had picnics and gatherings in my political days – and a memorable debate site. Passed through Galesburg, where […]
Read More Letter to a FriendBy Charlie Johnston I hit the wall on Wednesday this last week. Utterly exhausted after getting into St. Louis, I realized I hadn’t taken a full day off for over a month and a half. Back when I was running big campaigns, I was pretty insistent that the candidate should take at least one day […]
Read More Hitting the WallBy Charlie Johnston (I have been very enthusiastic about my visits and talks this year. People are focused, serious, and ready to get active. Some have wondered why I seem so generally enthusiastic about the way the country is going. Quite bluntly, I am astonished at how rapidly and determinedly the pagan left is destroying […]
Read More Through a Glass DarklyBy Charlie Johnston A quarter of a century ago, fearful of my capacity to confront the challenges I saw on the distant horizon, I resolved to work to banish sin from my life. When I told my original spiritual director, the one I call Towering Intellect, he looked at me in absolute exasperation. “I thought […]
Read More The American Iron CurtainBy Charlie Johnston Whatever happened to cabooses? I noticed while driving in the Midwest that I almost never see cabooses at the end of a freight train anymore. There is always only the last car in a train. When I was a kid, I saw cabooses at the end of almost every freight train. Maybe […]
Read More From the Vortex of the Swirling GyreBy Charlie Johnston One of my favorite book titles is Dennis Lehane’s, Mystic River. Lehane is perhaps the most literarily pleasing of the authors of crime thrillers. At his best, it can make his work sublime. At his worst, he ends up channeling his inner James Joyce – poorly – and it is a disaster. […]
Read More The River Rolls OnBy Charlie Johnston Nothing is lost in God’s economy. It is a saying I often use – and I mean it. The situation with my car was very bad. We have that handled. It is going to be fixed right here – with some parts being overnighted from Colorado. It won’t be ready until early […]
Read More An Expensive, but Fruitful, BreakdownBy Charlie Johnston Time for some prayers, my friends. Today while driving out of Boston to head on into Ohio, the timing belt on my car broke. Fortunately, I was near an exit and was able to coast to safety. The closest garage was a family owned affair. The two sons came out to help […]
Read More Grounded in Stockbridge