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November 2016

November 02, 2016

The Best Words: Selections from the Sex Tapes of Tremendous Male Poets

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones, When small birds sighed, she would sigh...

October 2016

October 27, 2016

Interview with a Zombie

Halloween costumes and decorations. If I’m a vampire, Pinterest is my garlic. Not only do...

October 26, 2016

The Debate About Beauty

I’ve been engaged in an ongoing wrangle with Gregory Wolfe about the status of Christian...

October 18, 2016

Creative Tension in the White Imagination

Tension Isn’t Usually Pretty A Facebook video shows a deputy sheriff getting in the face...

October 04, 2016

Thank You, Black Southern Belles

In the twenty-plus years since the Internet became a feature of our lives, there have...

October 03, 2016

T.S. Eliot, Agent of His Own Demise

In my last post for Good Letters, I took minor issue with a point my...

September 2016

September 08, 2016

The New Critics and the Barbarians

The poet and writer Dana Gioia penned an essay for the December 2013 issue of...

August 2016

August 30, 2016

Margo Jefferson’s Negroland

In her photo on the jacket flap of Negroland: A Memoir, Margo Jefferson looks to...

August 18, 2016

The Cost of Glory

Here I sit, watching the Olympics again; it hooks me every time. I always say...

August 08, 2016

When Ethics Conflict with the Law

Among the courses that I teach is Professional Responsibility—Legal Ethics—which is a subject covered on...

July 2016

July 18, 2016

Some Questions about Politics and the Imagination

The following appears as the editorial statement in Image issue 89. Q. Would you mind...

July 07, 2016

The Vegan at Our Chicken Slaughter

A few years ago, we invited the newest neighbor in our rural intentional Christian community...

June 2016

June 27, 2016

Dead People: Leszek Kolakowski (1927-2009)

For Gregory Wolfe The following is an excerpt from Meis’s new book Dead People, published...

June 15, 2016

More Incisive, More Powerful, More Permanent: Cast Your Vote for Image!

A political season is upon us. I’m guessing that whatever your party affiliation or philosophical...

May 2016

May 31, 2016

Richard Wilbur’s Poetry Captures Our Days

Last night I read a poem that showed me in a flash why I save...

May 26, 2016

Odd Northern Indiana

Route 41 takes you along the coast of Lake Michigan out of Chicago. If you...

May 16, 2016

Fun with Circumcision

Every year, when a specific national obstetrics and gynecology conference (or is it pediatrics?) comes...

May 03, 2016

Canada: Detroit’s Southerly Neighbor

Detroit is the only major city in America, people will tell you (even if you...

March 2016

March 24, 2016

I Am a Digital Man

I couldn’t record it in my Flava journal app because the transformation happened slowly, like...

March 22, 2016

Refugees Are People, Not a Crisis

Sometimes the horrors in the news are so overwhelming that I’m left speechless. This is...

March 21, 2016

A Space Program

The tenth item on a list entitled “How to Watch This Film,” which accompanies Tom Sachs' A...

March 17, 2016

Changing Positions: A Meditation for Campaign Season

(With help from Donovan, D. T. Suzuki, Qingyuan Weixin, Wallace Stevens, democracy, REM, Bonnie Raitt,...

March 15, 2016

Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry

The Detroit Institute of Art (DIA) is obviously not a religious institution. But damn if...

March 09, 2016

Finding My Inner Calamity Jane

Calamity Jane lumbered around Deadwood in fringed buckskins, spitting, cursing, and waving her whiskey flask...

February 2016

February 18, 2016

Everyone’s Waiting for the Victory Song

Everyone knows what happened. Everyone lifts a steaming spoon of cinnamon oatmeal to their lips....

February 04, 2016

Kolam: The Beauty of Uselessness

This one’s for Carin Ruff, and by way of answering my niece Kate’s question. A...

February 03, 2016

Creating Sacred Literature

“We are just at the beginning,” Charles Taylor wrote in his lumpy but essential tome, A...

January 2016

January 26, 2016

What Shall I Know at the End of My Days?

When I come to the end of my days, what shall I say I know...

January 13, 2016

Winners: Arts & Faith Ecumenical Jury Awards for 2015, Part 2

By Kenneth R. Morefield. Continued from yesterday. Read Part 1 here. Coninuing yesterday’s list of...

January 07, 2016

My Luxury, My Privilege

Though the Dalai Lama has yet to use a computer, the 1990s “Think Different” ad...