The Importance of Place, by Anthony Esolen

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Arichat, Cape Breton (Nova Scotia). A postcard from the late 1930s [courtesy of Merrill Boudreau]

By Anthony Esolen, The Catholic Thing, Aug. 5, 2023

Anthony Esolen is a lecturer, translator, and writer. Among his books are Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture, and Nostalgia: Going Home in a Homeless World, and most recently The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord. He is a professor and writer in residence at Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts, in Warner, New Hampshire. Be sure to visit his new website, Word and Song.

Man’s life is like the flower of the field, says the psalmist, “for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.”

That is not the psalmist’s last word on man, but we should pay heed to what he considers to be something profoundly sad, nor does he yet possess the revelation of eternal life.

He thinks instead of the children of those that fear the Lord, and their children’s children: that is a living place, beyond what the desert grasses have. And he understands that in his worship of God, he joins the immortal angels, “that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.” That too is a place, not to be despised. …

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