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December 2016

December 15, 2016

A Conversation with Scott Derrickson, Part 2

Continued from yesterday. Scott Derrickson is a director whose films include The Exorcism of Emily Rose,...

November 2016

November 01, 2016

Poison Ivy and the Path of Grief

Though its fruit should’ve been in season, too many harsh Midwest winters left the leaves...

October 2016

October 10, 2016

Elegy for My Father

My father: Roy Franklin Harmon, Jr., M.D., passed away on September 22, 2016 at the...

September 2016

September 23, 2016

Poetry Friday: “Visitation Rights” by Jeffrey Harrison

I sometimes talk to friends who have died. Especially to friends who acted as spiritual...

September 20, 2016

Middle Earth and Sister Moon

The biggest moon I’ve ever seen was over the North Sea in Scotland. Many nights,...

August 2016

August 16, 2016

The Neglected Garden, Part II

Continued from yesterday. The dollhouse my father was building for me was still unfinished when...

August 09, 2016

Fit for Immortality?

“How’s your health?” my long-time friend asked me with concern. “The leukemia is creeping toward...

July 2016

July 29, 2016

Poetry Friday: Four Sonnets

Sonnets meditating on illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages may sound a bit sanctimonious, even...

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 28, 2016

The Dragon and the Yahrzeit Candle: On Forgetting and Remembering, Part 1

I remember my social security number. I remember the combination to a lock—13 right, 27...

May 2016

May 19, 2016

The Long Regretful Wait

By Tony Woodlief My mother’s quavering voicemail was right: I hadn’t called in a long...

May 17, 2016

Grief and the Weight of Glory

The wind whips through the quilts and sheets on our clothesline, cracking now and then...

April 2016

April 19, 2016

The Wounds of Resurrection

As my husband prepared for an Easter sermon a few weeks ago, our dinnertime conversations...

April 05, 2016

A Dancing Christ

On Holy Saturday, I woke up at my sister's house in northern Minnesota with a...

March 2016

March 14, 2016

The Living Among the Dead

Thanksgiving Day after I turned four: high fever at dinner, a drive through a blizzard,...

March 08, 2016

Thawing at the Edges

When the spring teases me one day, outplaying the winter dullness for just an afternoon,...

February 2016

February 24, 2016

Peace, My Animal

"Benedic, anima mea," I say each night to the mouse that lives behind my desk....

December 2015

December 08, 2015

A Christian Jew and a Jewish Christian

By Alissa Herbaly Coons Summer is here in Australia, a string of perfectly forgettable sunny...

December 03, 2015

Above Calcutta

By Laura Bramon The summer before you died, I hid on the roof in Tollygunge....

October 2015

October 23, 2015

Hamster Hospice: Caring for God’s Tiny Creatures

For my son, Alex In the final months before our hamster died, I would lie...

October 16, 2015

The Way of Saint James

My Uncle Jimmy died in September at the age of ninety. Born in Sicily, he...

October 09, 2015

Our Lady’s Football Team

Every Saturday morning in fall I wake up and feel a tinge of disappointment that...

September 2015

September 21, 2015

Let Me Die Like This

When I die, Lord, let me go in a plane crash, spiraling down, earthward, earthward,...

August 2015

August 28, 2015

When It Comes to Love, We’re Beginners

By Jeffrey Overstreet During a lecture last March [2011], I spoke fondly of a friend...

August 26, 2015

A Requiem for Rejects

By Chad Thomas Johnston He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows,...

June 2015

June 15, 2015

His Murderer and His Keeper

Some days I can’t remember: Am I Abel or Cain? Blackberry soda in the afternoon...

June 02, 2015

The Beautiful Attitudes

By Dyana Herron I clearly remember the last day of being nine. I stood in...

June 01, 2015

Charlie Hebdo and the Inner Soul of Humor

My friend Justin Smith recently wrote a piece for Harper’s Magazine. Justin is a brilliant...

May 2015

May 29, 2015

Triple Scoop

By Jessica Mesman Griffith My best friend died suddenly almost two years ago. She’d lived...

May 12, 2015

Facing Calvary

There’s a line from last year’s thought-provoking film, Calvary, that’s uttered by a young French...