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

2017-10-02T07:16:38-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I Am Not Your Negro

Last updated on: October 2, 2017 at 7:16 am By Nick Olson

Near the beginning of Raoul Peck’s documentary, I Am Not Your Negro, James Baldwin says that in 1957 he couldn’t stop thinking about a photograph he saw at every newspaper kiosk in Paris. It was of the fifteen-year-old black girl Dorothy Counts, who was surrounded by a white crowd filled with revulsion at the sight of her. Dorothy walked to school in Charlotte, North Carolina in the wake of integration in the south. Samuel L. Jackson voices Baldwin’s words: “There... Read more

2017-09-27T00:58:24-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

My Kite Boy

Last updated on: September 27, 2017 at 12:58 am By Image

This post originally appeared at Good Letters on June 5, 2012. I woke at one thirty with a start. My heart pounded in my ears. My wife was warm under the covers beside me, in the heavy rhythm of sleep. Through the hiss of the white noise machine I could hear the wet clicks of our schipperke, Sgt. Pepper, under the bed obsessively licking his paw. I was afraid. I did my quick mental inventory. Everything was as it should... Read more

2017-09-25T22:37:18-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Painting Brings the Ancestors Around

Last updated on: September 25, 2017 at 10:37 pm By Natalie Vestin

On a November evening last year, I walked to my rosemaling class and sat around a table of women. We represented a wide range of ages and backgrounds, but we were all raised with rosemaling—breadboards and spoons and carved horses and Välkommen plaques all made of basswood. We were all trying to invoke the people we’d lost, the people who’d taught us who we were. Rosemaling, traditional Scandinavian folk-painting, depends heavily on brushstrokes and pattern, but it doesn’t ever feel... Read more

2017-09-27T08:00:02-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Questions for the One Who Waits

Last updated on: September 27, 2017 at 8:00 am By Richard Chess

Psalm 27 is read by Jews from the beginning of the Jewish month of Elul through the Jewish High Holidays: Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year; and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Read more

2017-09-21T23:50:55-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Poetry Friday: “Cellar Door”

Last updated on: September 21, 2017 at 11:50 pm By Image

I love poems that stitch together memories from opposite ends of a lifetime, connecting them to our collective story in surprising ways. This poem feels dreamlike in its skill at just this kind of stitchwork. How simple Stelmach makes it look: take a phrase from poetry (commonly, arbitrarily) held as the most beautiful, and test that theory out. This could become gimmicky or superficial in less skilled hands. Yet instead of skimming the surface, Stelmach’s poem descends. The poet takes... Read more

Melissa Reeser Poulin

poetry

Poetry Friday

2017-09-20T23:18:54-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Secret Mercies

Last updated on: September 20, 2017 at 11:18 pm By A. G. Harmon

Ours is a confessional age, a time in which telling all is not only customarily practiced but also routinely lauded. To do less than unbosom oneself in the most candid of ways is both to endanger one’s mental and emotional health (a distinction I’ve never been quite clear on) and to frustrate the kind of eye-scalding “transparency” that the age calls for at every turn. The unleashed tongue becomes the agent of “honesty,” which is said to be warranted in... Read more

A. G. Harmon

honesty

mercy

My Mother and Other Strangers

review

television

2017-09-19T22:36:48-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

From Sophocles to Twin Peaks: What Killed Laura Palmer?

Last updated on: September 19, 2017 at 10:36 pm By Image

This post originally appeared at Good Letters on June 1, 2012. One of the toughest and most important jobs I have as an English professor at a small, women’s liberal arts college, is teaching students to write well. I would love to hold forth on Flannery O’Connor—my lifelong literary crush—but getting students to care about writing involves helping them find something they’re interested in, not foisting my predilections upon them. My job in first semester English composition is to make... Read more

2017-09-18T22:58:50-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Spirit’s Indwelling

Last updated on: September 18, 2017 at 10:58 pm By Elizabeth Duffy

Beside me this morning is a child at the breakfast table vigorously chewing a Fuji apple and explaining to me the mutative abilities of a small vehicle based on the particular placement of a certain Lego brick. Sometimes the vehicle is a plow, sometimes a combine, depending on whether that brick is before it, behind it, or occasionally, totally removed. He is absolutely enthralled by the powers of his own creation, as he sends the vehicle making tracks through a... Read more

2017-09-17T22:34:56-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Parenting by Politics

Last updated on: September 17, 2017 at 10:34 pm By Brad Fruhauff

The moment is freeze-framed in my mind: My eldest, Milo, red-faced with anger, his eyes hard but wild, a look I know means he feels both out of control and desperate to re-exert it. The yellow light of the floor lamps casts dark shadows over the couch and his face. Shoot it in black and white and you’d call it noir lighting. He’s holding my phone toward me in both hands, threateningly, and he’s beginning to twist… It had been... Read more

2017-09-14T22:45:59-07:00

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Poetry Friday: “Medieval Miniatures: Entry into Jerusalem”

Last updated on: September 14, 2017 at 10:45 pm By Image

Dan Murphy has written a series of poems inspired by medieval miniatures: those marvelously detailed paintings crammed full with colorful life. In this poem, Murphy uses the miniature of Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem to multiply images for our human need to reach for the beyond. I love the variety of these images: someone climbing a tree (“half- / Way marker of earth and sky”); “human form / As flag announcing spirit through / Flesh”; the boy reaching “for a bird... Read more

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

On which day did God create animals?

Select your answer to see how you score.

On the fourth day On the sixth day On the third day On the first day

Browse Our Archives

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

TRENDING AT PATHEOS Catholic