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March 2013

March 27, 2013

How to Visit a Grave

Guest Post By Shannon Huffman Polson 1. Drive down unmarked road in rental car to...

March 26, 2013

A Story About the Horrible Glorious Truth

I want to write a beautiful story. I want my reader to cry when the...

March 26, 2013

The Last Taboo in Hollywood

Ask my wife: I’ve been known to be a sucker for some fairly wooden programming...

March 25, 2013

The New Improved Golden Rule

Our neighbor Jack is a retired widower. He goes to a mainline Baptist church. It’s...

March 22, 2013

The Pope, My Husband, and Me

“He blessed us.” Craig’s eyes twinkle, his mouth twitches. I recognize the man I fell...

March 21, 2013

The Heart, a Home under Construction

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have...

March 19, 2013

Seeking and Sought by God

I did not enter a church until I was in third grade. My friend Vicky,...

March 18, 2013

Auden’s Love of Neighbor

This is my one hundredth post for Good Letters. What a privilege it has been...

March 18, 2013

This Old House

I was raised in a house full of old furniture: old desks, old mirrors, old...

March 15, 2013

Rodeo and the Church Calendar

Despite my Christian upbringing, I didn’t grow up with the church calendar. Easter was a...

March 14, 2013

It Ain’t All Bluegrass, Blues, and Ribs

I know my limits. Though often I go on saying yes to this, yes to...

March 13, 2013

Little Houses

For Peter and Jackie Cooley, who live in one. “So what do you know about...

March 12, 2013

The Hobbit, the Holy Spirit, and Calculus

It was my eleven-year-old’s turn to pick a movie, and he chose The Hobbit, just...

March 11, 2013

The Preacher’s Kid Returns

My sister my brother and I are right now, from three separate states, trying to...

March 08, 2013

Can I Offer Up My Suffering?

“Pain is an evil, suffering is an evil. We mustn’t desire it. We don’t desire...

March 06, 2013

Vengeance Isn’t Mine

Bring me a fountain pen dipped in blood! And the skin from his back for...

March 05, 2013

Will a Migraine Make Me Holy?

In her collection The White Album, published in 1979, Joan Didion has an essay called...

March 04, 2013

The Day My Parents Were Raptured

In the spring of 2002, my sister Alyssa and I left college behind for a...

March 01, 2013

Feeling the Questions: A Serious Man and Footnote

“Why does he make us feel the questions if he won’t give us the answers?”...

February 2013

February 28, 2013

The Way of a Pilgrim

When it comes to music, I am a lover of routine. My iTunes playlists are...

February 26, 2013

The Poverty of Language

Another exercise. This one an exercise in seeing deeply, visualization, sketching from memory, and composing...

February 26, 2013

We Are All Immigrants

Several years ago I had the humbling honor of sharing my journey as a convert...

February 24, 2013

Living in a Border State

I spent elementary school in a Mexican neighborhood in Austin, Texas. I attended birthday parties...

February 22, 2013

Haunted by Phantom Limbs

One such patient, under my care, describes how he must “wake up” his phantom in...

February 21, 2013

Becoming Uncool in the Pursuit of Truth

This morning, prepping for a class I’m teaching called Writing about Film and Music, I...

February 15, 2013

A Father-Daughter Story

I sit in the sunroom and look at the strewn possessions of my youngest, my...

February 14, 2013

Stories that Clamor for Attention

A few weeks ago, early planning started for this summer’s Fiction Intensive at UC Berkeley...

February 13, 2013

What are You Doing for Lent?

“So what are you doing for Lent this year, Bill?” This was my annual question...

February 11, 2013

Jesus Died for Somebody’s Sins (But Not Mine)

For Pastor Matt, who hopes to convert my skeptical ears to belief in bluegrass, and...

February 08, 2013

The Little Sisters of the Poor: Religious Conscience and Government Mandates

When you’re poor for your entire life, it’s possible to become somewhat inured to misery....