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April 2016

April 15, 2016

Poetry Friday: “The Grackles” by Betsy Sholl

Here is a poem that silently enacts a conversion. The poem starts off with a...

March 2016

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 11, 2016

Poetry Friday: “Meditation on the Evangelista” by Karen An-Hwei Lee

What if God turned up at your door in the form of a brush salesman?...

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 29, 2016

Love Your Enemies for Lent

Another campaign season is upon us with a vengeance. Actually it's campaign seasons—since the U.S....

February 05, 2016

Brooklyn: A Drama of Discernment

One of the hardest things in life is having two good choices that are completely...

February 02, 2016

The Erotic Powers of the Holy Spirit

My thirteen-year-old son had seen the Viagra commercials for years, but never understood what they...

February 01, 2016

How Much God Loves Us

By John Bryant He was born with cerebral palsy and he has it all the...

January 2016

January 25, 2016

Listening to Simone

By Christiana N. Peterson The woman stands in the entryway of our common building just...

January 14, 2016

Learning Detachment in the Attic

By Elizabeth Duffy When my cousin became a Dominican sister, she gave away all of...

January 06, 2016

Autistic Lives Matter

When I first met Daniel Bowman Jr. at the Festival of Faith and Writing, we...

December 2015

December 29, 2015

God is Sacrificial Love

If God is love, as we’re told, then what kind of love is he? In...

December 02, 2015

Here is Where We Wait

This summer, I climbed the rotting steps to the hayloft of my family's barn to...

November 2015

November 19, 2015

My Wish for My Students

Only this I wish for my students: this semester, I hope you will learn to...

September 2015

September 28, 2015

My Days of Awe, 5776

Impatience. Anger. Wastefulness. Restlessness. Desire. Haughtiness. Greed. Judgement. Pride. § I’ve been paying...

September 18, 2015

Becoming Food

At five a.m. this morning, my husband woke me while taking money from my wallet...

September 15, 2015

Dancing with Zoe

By Tali Rose Treece Every day as I walked to school I saw them through...

September 04, 2015

For the Newlyweds

May you have the courage to let go of everything you know about yourselves—everything you...

August 2015

August 26, 2015

A Requiem for Rejects

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

August 11, 2015

Happy Pride Parade

I was in tears watching my city's Gay Pride parade go by this year. Yes,...

July 2015

July 14, 2015

Beauty, Christian Love, and Gay Marriage

Justice Anthony Kennedy, in the recent Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, wrote the following...

July 02, 2015

Dancing for My Life, Part 2

Continued from yesterday. Traditional dance is, by modern standards, inherently misogynistic. The man leads, in...

July 01, 2015

Dancing for My Life, Part 1

“ONE two three, LONG short short—don’t step on her!” Gulya is my dance instructor. She’s...

June 2015

June 18, 2015

A Holy Habitation for Life’s Story

By Allison Backous Troy May the Lord bless thee out of Zion; and so shalt...

June 11, 2015

Prayers in the River

I stand hip-deep in a river, casting into the eddies. I am not the kind...

May 2015

May 20, 2015

Monasticism in Lockdown America, Part 9: Psalms, In the End

Continued from yesterday. Thinking of the psalms as a way to cycle through the...

May 19, 2015

Monasticism in Lockdown America, Part 8: Psalms, In the Beginning

I always privately hated the psalms. Most of them, anyway. As a teenager, I’d leaf...

May 12, 2015

Facing Calvary

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

April 2015

April 03, 2015

It Is Finished: Christ’s Words from the Cross

When Jesus had taken the wine, he said, “It is finished.” And bowing his head,...

March 2015

March 17, 2015

Complimentary Angles

Cristin slammed the kitchen door behind her when she came home from work a few...