Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Good Letters

Home
Catholic

Authors

Select a Category A. G. Harmon Alissa Wilkinson Allison Backous Art Authors Brad Fruhauff Bradford Winters Bryan Bliss Caroline Langston Chad Thomas Johnston Chris Hoke Christiana N. Peterson Culture D.G. Myers D.L. Mayfield Daniel Bowman Jr. David Griffith Elizabeth Duffy Faith Film Greg Wolfe Guest Contributor Interview Jan Vallone Jeffrey Overstreet Jessica Eddings-Roeser Jessica Mesman Griffith Kelly Foster Lindsey Crittenden Morgan Meis music Natalie Vestin Nick Olson Peggy Rosenthal Personal Reflection Poetry Friday Reflection Relationships Review Richard Chess Richard Cole Sara Zarr Shannon Huffman Polson Sonya Bilocerkowycz Tania Runyan Tony Woodlief Topical Categories Uncategorized Vic Sizemore Writing

Select a Month October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 February 2008

May 2013

May 17, 2013

The Glass Coffin

For Hella Winston “To be full of things is to be empty of God. To...

May 15, 2013

An Orchestra Against Ignorance

The alumni magazine of Brown University, my alma mater, begins its article on a unique orchestra...

May 15, 2013

A Corporal Work of Mercy

I was nearly two weeks late, so I already knew the answer, but I took...

May 13, 2013

Two Tribes: Good Wishes and Good Works

One summer my family got evicted from the house we were renting in Florida. The...

May 08, 2013

The Marrow of Prayer

Early this year, Spanish researchers published a peer-reviewed paper considering the evidence of social learning...

May 07, 2013

Emerging from the Tomb Intact

There’s a moment in Anna Karenina in which a frustrated Anna turns to her husband....

May 06, 2013

Tuck In Your Artifice, It’s Showing

When someone shared Michael Chabon’s New York Review of Books blog post about the movies...

May 02, 2013

The Diameter of the Bomb

By the time this posts more than two weeks after the event, the Boston Marathon...

May 01, 2013

This Is the Way the World Ends

Confucius thought that social unrest could stem from dissociation between language and reality. A “rectification...

April 2013

April 30, 2013

Of Parsonages and Pirates

For Cathy Warner, Literary Editor of IMAGE Journal’s “Good Letters” Blog But Jesus called the...

April 29, 2013

Partaking and Passing On: The Work of Luci Shaw

The world is not with us—enough. O taste and see. –Denise Levertov, “Taste and See”...

April 26, 2013

Luci Shaw’s Poetry of Hope and Humility

The pale bits—twigs, fibers, pine needles—sun struck, fall through the lazy air as if yearning...

April 25, 2013

Israel at 65: Caught in a Homeland Trap

“People caught in a homeland-trap,” writes the late Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai in “National Thoughts,”...

April 24, 2013

Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

Well, somebody at Good Letters had to do it: Somebody had to go buy the...

April 23, 2013

Peripheral Vision

Not long ago, I had surgery. I suppose that in the vastness of creation, the...

April 22, 2013

The Inestimable Value of Clichés

In his great work, Earthly Powers, Anthony Burgess has the main character—Kenneth Toomey, a doddering,...

April 19, 2013

The Eucharist: Eat, Eat!

Good Letters welcomes Shannon Huffman Polson to our blogging team. Her memoir North of Hope:...

April 18, 2013

Art as a Common Gift

Given the several ways of modernist art it is logical to conclude that the production...

April 17, 2013

Mother of Sorrows: Colm Toibin’s Testament of Mary

Good Letters welcomes back former blogger Jessica Mesman Griffith, author of the new book Love...

April 16, 2013

The Last Taboo in Hollywood, Take 3

In yesterday’s post I did a “second take” (in keeping with the Hollywood motif) on...

April 15, 2013

The Last Taboo in Hollywood, Take 2

I didn’t plan on there being a second take when I sat down to write...

April 12, 2013

Wild-Eyed Youth Pastor

I recently found an unexpected e-mail in my in-box. It was from Joe, my youth...

April 10, 2013

On Roger Ebert and Cinematic Stockholm Syndrome

For Chaz Ebert When I was a child in the ‘80s, a stranger who resembled...

April 09, 2013

She Will Not Live a Small Life

And all were guests. —Naomi Shihab Nye, “Arabic Coffee” The first thing that struck me...

April 08, 2013

More Poetry of Married Love

In a previous post, I used Richard Wilbur’s poem “for C” to talk about my...

April 05, 2013

The Moveable Feast of Memory

There are moments when you take stock of everyone and everything around you because you...

April 03, 2013

The Poems Left In Me

With gratitude to the poets whose poems gave me this. The poems left in me...

April 03, 2013

The Seed in the Grave

When the creamy, letter-press-printed wedding invitation arrived on a wintry February day, it seemed an...

April 01, 2013

If Necessary, Use Words

As a retort to the old saying that “a New Englander never uses ten words...

March 2013

March 28, 2013

We Are Not Forsaken

My daughter’s teeth were clenched from the brain tumor and so I would hold her...