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August 2014

August 11, 2014

Escape from the Holy Land, Part 1

By Bradford Winters On a Friday morning in mid July, I entered Ben Gurion Airport...

August 06, 2014

He Fits Right In: Our Story of Open Adoption

I’ve tried to stop policing adoption language, no matter how much phrases like “real mom,”...

July 2014

July 30, 2014

Losing the Thread

Guest post by Michael Leary After someone commits suicide you begin to filter through everything...

July 17, 2014

Ovarian Cancer and a Circumcised Heart

Circumcise therefore the thickness about your hearts. —Deuteronomy 10:16 Her dying and death circumcised...

July 08, 2014

Quitting the Cancer Battle

I am not a hero. After my last post, some readers wanted to know how...

July 03, 2014

Hymn to the Fourth of July

The Fourth of July is coming up, and if there’s any time of the year...

June 2014

June 02, 2014

Can’t a Dad Hug His Boy?

When I sat down to work at my computer yesterday morning, I checked my email...

February 2014

February 07, 2014

A Feast of Love

It’s nineteen degrees today, the lakes are frozen solid, and the snowdrifts are twice my...

January 2014

January 24, 2014

Walking Toward Forgiveness

Outside our trailer park, a set of railroad tracks ran from east to west, dividing...

December 2013

December 19, 2013

Blow on the Coal of the Heart

I light the first candle of Advent. We have no wreath. This is our first...

October 2013

October 28, 2013

My Brother John: A Eulogy for the Living

For some months now, I have been ruminating on the writer John Podhoretz’s eulogy in...

October 21, 2013

The Long Wait

My mother’s quavering voicemail was right: I hadn’t called in a long time. I justified...

October 04, 2013

Sarah Masen: The Trying Mark, Part 2

Guest Post By Angela Doll Carlson In yesterday’s interview with Sarah Masen, we chatted about...

September 2013

September 20, 2013

Roots Trip to the Castles in My Bloodline, Part 2

Continued from yesterday. A tempest of Winters temper—mine—had blown through the Highlands of Scotland...

September 19, 2013

Roots Trip To the Castles in My Bloodline, Part 1

If you grew up in the Seventies as I did, you might recall a popular...

August 2013

August 13, 2013

Sorting Through the Past

I’ve been cleaning out an attic—not my own—along with drawers, closets, shelves, storehouses, and barns...

July 2013

July 18, 2013

Camping with God

The exodus (small “e”) was a family of five fleeing the New York summer in...

May 2013

May 15, 2013

A Corporal Work of Mercy

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

January 2013

January 25, 2013

Advice for My Little Sister

Twelve years passed, almost to the day, between my birth and the birth of my...

December 2012

December 10, 2012

Seasons of the Soul

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning since August I’ve walked a long wooded path to...

December 05, 2012

Life and Longing in Laramie

Dust…flies free for a moment, then returns, leisurely, to the habitual road—that bruised string which...

October 2012

October 17, 2012

Don’t Cry for Me, Bethesda

Awhile back, a well-meaning (and very successful) friend said to me, “I just wish we...

August 2012

August 31, 2012

The Garden of Memory

My brother and I walked down an old road the other day. Our parents were...

August 21, 2012

Halos and Other Important Things

By Jessica Eddings-Roeser Guest Post In second grade my mom put me in an art...

August 15, 2012

Parenting 101

The latest fashionable parenting wisdom is that a parent’s wisdom doesn’t matter. Some public intellectuals...

July 2012

July 31, 2012

In the Company of Women, Part 2

“You’re the sort of man who can’t know anyone intimately, least of all a woman.”...

July 26, 2012

Heading Home on the Back Roads

Today Good Letters welcomes back former blogger Dyana Herron as a regular contributor. Dyana is...

July 18, 2012

Staking My Life on Farm Boys

A Farewell: Kelly Foster is retiring from the Good Letters blogging team with this post....

July 03, 2012

Coming Home to Fatherhood

I recently saw a brief clip of a ten year-old girl in her classroom who...

June 2012

June 26, 2012

Why All This Music?

Guest Post I grew up in the Mohawk River valley of upstate New York. By...