Unearned Luck

Kurt Wallander, an inspector with the Ystad Police Department, is the protagonist in a series of crime novels written by Swedish novelist, Henning Mankell. Nine of the novels were dramatized and presented on the BBC in 2008, 2010, and 2012. Starring Kenneth Branaugh as Wallander, the BBC production, according to critics, did a very good job of presenting the novels and Branaugh did an equally good job of portraying the police inspector. Wallander, tortured by the evils and horrors that confront him in his job, has become detached, depressed, and cynical. In the first story in the BBC series, his wife has already left him and found another man. His daughter seems to have little respect for him and is not at all sympathetic with the sorrow he feels in losing his wife. Having no faith of any kind, trusting no one, and unable to form any friendships, Wallander's only solution to the pain, confusion, and frustration in his life is to spend every night drinking until he passes out, the...

One of the most admirable aspects of the relationship between St. Ambrose and St. Augustine during the time that St. Augustine was taking instruction from St. Ambrose was the willingness of St. Ambrose to let St. Augustine leave and return to North Africa without being received into the Church. St. Augustine understood everything that St. Ambrose had taught him and thought all of it made perfect sense. He just couldn't believe it. Instead of telling St. Augustine that he didn't have to believe all of it or that he could decide for himself what he believed, St. Ambrose respected the truth of the Catholic faith and St. Augustine's dignity and did not receive St. Augustine on a kind of "conditional" basis. For both St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, everything the Church taught was vital to and necessary for salvation and, therefore, had to be believed. The reason St. Augustine had not become a devoted follower of any other religion or philosophy at the time was this v...