Her contemporaries called her “the Queen of the Methodists,”[1] “Lady Bountiful,”[2] “a Mother in Israel,”[3] “a Mother to the poor,”[4] and “a star of the first magnitude in the firmament of the church.”[5] Philip Doddridge went as far as saying he had never seen “so much of the image of God in a woman upon […]
Monday, 03 January, 2022 by Simonetta Carr
Most people with a basic knowledge of English history have heard the name of Katherine Parr, Henry VIII’s sixth and final wife, the only one in the list that could be said to have “survived” without experiencing a divorce. Few, however, are familiar with her story, and even fewer with her writings. In fact, her […]
Wednesday, 24 November, 2021 by Simonetta Carr
The Writings of Phillis WheatleyEdited by Vincent CarrettaOxford University Press, 2019288 pages (hardcover), $125.00 What do we know about Phillis Wheatley? A small poll among my Facebook friends (the thirty-eight who replied) showed that about one-third has never heard of her, over one-third has heard of her but knows little, and less than one-third is […]
Monday, 01 March, 2021 by Simonetta Carr
In 1643, Princess Elisabeth of the Palatinate asked the philosopher René Descartes for some explanations about his theories on the distinction about the body and the mind – the same mind he had made the starting point for the confirmation of all knowledge in his Cogito ergo sum argument (“I think, therefore I am”). Elisabeth, […]
Wednesday, 09 September, 2020 by Simonetta Carr
Scientists disagree on its causes, treatment, and prevention. Government regulations seem slow and, in some cases, counter-productive. Truth is elusive, yet many claim to have it. I must be talking about Covid-19, right? Actually, no, I was talking about mental illness. There is a sense in which, when coronavirus first invaded our news channels, some […]
Thursday, 09 July, 2020 by Simonetta Carr
A couple of weeks ago, my pastor challenged the congregation with a weighty thought: our eagerness to reopen our church should not be self-centered. These words lingered in my mind long after the sermon was over. What would be a self-centered reason to reopen? A desire to claim our right to return to church? A […]
Tuesday, 09 June, 2020 by Simonetta Carr
In the midst of our varied responses to the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown – responses that range from apathy to anger – it’s easy to forget those who are normally neglected under the best circumstances, including people who live with or around some form of mental illness. For many of them, this current combination of […]
Wednesday, 29 April, 2020 by Simonetta Carr
Life is complex. In our fast-moving world, we gravitate toward simple answers, clear definitions, and well-defined categories. At first glance, sin seems to fall into this classification. It’s an offense against God, and through Christ it is confessed and forgiven. But when it comes to mental illness, we lose many of our bearings, whether we […]
Wednesday, 01 January, 2020 by Simonetta Carr
We are drawn to extremes, because they help us categorize the world around us. We like things that are black and white, right or wrong, good or bad. Categorizing saves us the time and exhausting efforts of trying to understand what is beyond our comprehension. Mental illness, especially in its most serious forms, jolts us […]
Friday, 01 November, 2019 by Simonetta Carr
The enduring influence of Christianity on many of its greatest critics is one of modern history’s paradoxes. In Damning Words: The Life and Religious Times of H. L. Mencken, D. G. Hart highlights this apparent incongruity in the life of the legendary American agnostic—from his childhood in the last decade of the nineteenth century to […]
Monday, 01 January, 2018 by Simonetta Carr
A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench. (Isa. 42:3) Some biographies leave us with mixed emotions. The surge of inspiration we get when reading about the unswerving faith of Christian martyrs or the utter dedication of some preachers or missionaries is sometimes dampened by the feeling […]
Friday, 20 May, 2016 by Simonetta Carr
So, this is death. My son’s body, yesterday strong and lively, is lying listless and cold in a pool of blood. I have seen animals dying, even back in the Garden, when the Lord replaced our inadequate leaf coverings with animal skins, sacrificing an animal for our protection. But this is different. Death has come […]
Thursday, 31 December, 2015 by Simonetta Carr