A Modest Proposal For the New Year
In St. Patrick's cathedral in Dublin there is one particular memorial stone in the floor that stands out above all the others--a stone dedicated to Jonathan Swift. Jonathan Swift was a 17th century author, essayist, political satirist and also a clergyman. Swift is perhaps most famous for writing the satirical travelogue Gulliver's Travels. He also served as the Dean of St. Patrick's, where he is memorialized by the aforementioned stone, a stained glass window, statues and the like. When I stumbled upon his memorial stone during a visit to the cathedral a couple of years ago, I was elated to find a familiar name in the floor. You see, all of the memorials that surrounded me, the altars, niches, paintings, statuary, marble slabs and the like were honoring people I'd never heard of before. In fact, MOST of the hundreds of memorials in the church were of people who'd been long forgotten--their names shuffled over and smoothed out by centuries o...