Category: Christian Life

Many people are frightened of entering a crowded room of strangers. It is not my favourite activity, either. In general, I do not go alone to social events. Either I go where I am known, or I cajole friends or husband to come with me. Travelling alone to unknown cities, I discovered long ago, is…

My favourite hobby is not dancing but learning Polish. This comes in handy when I visit Poland or small Polish visitors turn up at my door brandishing storybooks. It is also the royal road to traditional Polish culture, which is almost unimaginably rich, as well as intertwined with the Christian—predominantly Catholic—faith. Time travelling My best…

Dear dancers, please pardon my silence. Mr McLean and I have decided that we must move from our lovely little upper villa to a home friendlier to wheelchairs, and so I have had no time for writing, let alone dancing. We have been looking at ground-floor flats and bungalows and even conventional houses, and when…

Once again, I was reminded of Michael Platt’s essay about music and dancing: In all dancing, the dancers move to the same music; mere individuals are formed into a community. But there are so many ways of arranging a community — or not. In all dancing in the West, at least since the Renaissance, the…

A friend of mine from way back published an eye-catching photo of her homeschooled daughter Faustina at an old-fashioned American prom, and I was intrigued. Part of the project of this website is to meet other organizers of traditional Catholic social dances, so Adele put me in touch with a woman involved with the Holy…

I once told a priest about feeling depressed, and he suggested volunteer work as a remedy. Volunteer work was not the answer I was looking for. I had done bibs and bobs of it, beginning in Girl Guides, and found it incredibly boring and even frightening. I hated selling daffodils to strangers outside the supermarket…