If you’re going to be in New York City tomorrow night you can hear Paul Zahl (above in Las Vegas) talk at Calvary-St. George’s Church on this intriguing subject — “An Odd Sighting of the Paranormal: ‘Penrod’ Crosses Over to the Great Beyond”.

He writes:

I think a sure sign of temperamental openness in a person is how open they are to the paranormal.  At times traditional Christians are quite closed to this, and it reflects something about them.  Martial atheists, too, can be tight as a drum when it comes to the “liminal”.  Tight as a drum.  But religion by definition is open to ‘The Borderland” (The Outer Limits 1963).   At least I hope it is.  Come to find out the American novelist Booth Tarkington opened his own door in 1918.  He “resolved” his famous saga of a declining family, The Magnificent Ambersons, by a direct entry, on the part of a lead character, into the Twilight Zone.  It’s an amazing denouement.  Orson Welles couldn’t film it when it came to making his inspired movie of the same.  How can you film what happens to ‘Eugene Morgan’ near the end of the Ambersons?   At the Olmsted Salon November 24th I would like to talk briefly about this little Tarkingtonian detour, and its implications for art as well as faith.

Details here.