From "On Fictions and Gospel" in Thomas Howard's The Night is Far Spent:
This is the paradox about stories: they seem to lead us away into imaginary regions, but they have an unsettling way of discovering for us the immediate place where we are.
In 1867, Matthew Arnold wrote "Dover Beach", a haunting poem evoking the "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" of the Sea of Faith. As a boomer who finished Catholic elementary school in 1964 and then watched my Church falter, I've found the roar all too audible. So here I wait, listening for the whispers of that Sea's invincible return.
