The Handshake At The End

                

By Eric Le Roy

  

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Sometimes a death in the family comes like grief poured over your head, a bucketful of black water. You can drown that way. Sometimes it feels like liberation. Often, it’s more of a handshake. That’s how it was with my Dad and me.

Earlier this week, a friend told me that his mother had passed. She was 93. My friend has also been subjected Read the rest

The Cross and the Courage to Think

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I have no interest in mocking anyone’s faith. Not because I am afraid of offending people, but because faith is often where people keep their most tender parts: grief, hope, guilt, gratitude, love. If you kick that door down with sarcasm, you do not prove you are intelligent. You prove you are careless.

And yet, if something is truly sacred, it should be able to breathe in daylight. Questions are … Read the rest

Two Old Men, One Time Machine, and the Lie Both Parties Tell

ChatGPT Image Dec 28, 2025, 01_16_44 PM

The phone box was parked in open space the way a confident cat parks itself on your keyboard: with total disregard for physics, your calendar, and your dignity.

From the outside, it was an ordinary public phone box, the sort you would ignore on a wet street in Manchester. From the inside, it was a lounge, a studio, a parliamentary bar, and—if you looked too closely at one corner—possibly a … Read the rest

Keys In Need Of The Distant Doors

By Eric Le Roy  

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In the 21st century, people eager to don the mantel of idealism are inclined toward harsh judgments of the past. Often they are right, for who among us would shout, “Bring back slavery!!” Or “Cancel Human Rights!”? It’s even getting harder all the time to talk someone into advocating for the return of capital punishment.

As for me, I would be uncomfortable in a place … Read the rest

The Finch And The Falconer

By Eric Le Roy

     

                         

“The world is a comedy for those who think, and a tragedy for those who feel” – Horace Walpole

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Only the Lonely” was the signature song of a guy named Roy Orbison, a star in the early rock’ n’ roll era. Orbison died in 1988 of a heart attack at the age of 52. Songs are full of lonely guys; they were back … Read the rest