Where We Start From: Hope from the Narthex of the Apocalypse

Russell Kirk, the great American man of letters, wrote mostly non-fiction, but he also wrote twenty-two superb, unsettling ghostly tales. I maintain a web site called Ghostly Kirk that is dedicated to these stories. Enjoy this site, but, better still, read the marvelous tales! Happy All Hallows Eve, All Hallows (Saints) Day, and All Souls Day. Russell Kirk (1918-1994)

"...that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain..." From The October Country (1955) by Ray Bradbury   According to Mr. Bradbury, there is a country called "October." I am sure Mr. Bradbury has visited it many times. I've never been there, but I've seen glimpses of it, and have read much of its literature. Some of the best literature of the October Country ever written are ghostly tales. I'm not talking about horror tales, with blood and axes and maniacs. I'm talking about suspenseful tales told in whispers about things behind doors, ...

Where Love Is, There God Is Also (Leo Tolstoy, compiled by Lawrence Jordan, Fleming H. Revell, 2001, 93 pages, cloth), serves as a powerful introduction to Leo Tolstoy’s (1828-1910) gospel-based short stories for those familiar with his earlier works, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, and his wider array of short stories with a secular focus, as well as for those whose literary wanderings exclude the great Russian. The book contains three short stories, “Where Love Is, There God Is Also,” “The Three Hermits,” and “What Men Live By,” each written by Tolstoy after he had renounced his earlier works as “products of an idle brain.” These stories give us an understanding of the practicality of Christ’s teachings for daily living. They remind us, through direct confrontation with Tolstoy’s brutally honest prose, that to be faithful to Jesus Christ we must move beyond mere mental and verbal assent to His teachings into the realm of assent and practice, of faith and works. This key but oft-negl...