The Feast Days of Snowfall

Last updated on: March 5, 2014 at 1:30 am By Caroline Langston

Dedicated to Amy Chevalier Efantis Aside from any private celebrations hosted by the Tulane alumni organization or the Louisiana State Society, there was no Mardi Gras in Washington, D.C. Tuesday. Oh, as with everything else in a city whose official face is all about signaling and little about actual meaning, there are token, presumably resonant gestures. Starting the week before Ash Wednesday, in typically truncated, efficient fashion, some downtown bakeries will put out King Cakes—too dry, not frosted enough, too... Read more

Risen Words

Last updated on: June 11, 2014 at 6:45 pm By Jan Vallone

A book was sleeping inside me. It was somewhere deep and warm, somewhere just beneath my heart. At first, the words free-floated lightly, whispering so I could barely hear them. Next they somersaulted nimbly, mesmerizing me. Then they dropkicked, demanding their release. Days, weeks, and months went by. Still, I did not begin to write the book. A book takes years from your life. Each day you have to stand upon a cliff, take a breath, plunge into the chasm.... Read more

Hearing Voices

Last updated on: February 26, 2014 at 5:58 pm By Richard Chess

Let the words find you, you who have been hiding from them for so long. That’s what I heard, that sentence. Hear, O Israel: maybe because I’ve said those three words, Hear, O Israel, for as long as I can remember, I listened. Maybe I was in the shower. Maybe I had just finished listening to a story on Weekend Edition, and I was turning, turning away, turning my attention but my attention hadn’t arrived at what it was seeking,... Read more

God For Us An Interview with Beth Bevis

Last updated on: February 24, 2014 at 5:31 pm By Guest Contributor

Image, the sponsor of this blog, played a central role in the publication of God For Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Lent and Easter, released in December. Co-edited by Image editor Gregory Wolfe and Image board member Greg Pennoyer, God With Us features meditations for every day of Lent by some of the most highly regarded spiritual writers of our time, including Richard Rohr, Kathleen Norris, Ronald Rolheiser, Luci Shaw, and Scott Cairns. Here Paraclete Press interviews contributor Beth Bevis.... Read more

Blaze: David Wilcox Opens the Heart, Part 2

Last updated on: February 28, 2014 at 5:55 pm By Shannon Huffman Polson

This interview with singer-writer David Wilcox, whose new album blaze released this week, is continued from yesterday. Shannon Huffman Polson: So many people are writing—and reading—dystopia right now, at least in the world of literature. “Oil Talkin’ To Ya” has a more positive vision of the world. How have you been able to transcend what seems to be in vogue of the hopelessness relating to the current challenges of the world? David Wilcox: The idea I tried with “Oil” is... Read more

Blaze: David Wilcox Opens the Heart, Part 1

Last updated on: February 25, 2014 at 4:36 pm By Shannon Huffman Polson

David Wilcox describes himself as a “father, a husband, a citizen and a songwriter…a traveler—an adventurer at his core, always on his way somewhere.” The celebrated songwriter and creator of more than eighteen albums began his career with a bike ride through North Carolina when he was a teenager and has called Asheville home ever since. Wilcox’s latest album blaze debuted Tuesday. I talked to him about narrative and responsibility, creative process, and how songwriting opens his heart and teaches... Read more

The Arts and Faith Top 25 Divine Comedies

Last updated on: February 26, 2014 at 10:42 am By Guest Contributor

Guest post by Steven D. Greydanus A joke can be so big that it breaks the roof of the stars. By simply going on being absurd, a thing can become godlike; there is but one step from the ridiculous to the sublime. —G.K. Chesterton Chesterton is known as the “Apostle of Common Sense,” but a 1922 article in a religious paper once called him something even more appropriate: “The Apostle of Laughter”—laughter being, for Chesterton, both the soul of common... Read more

Letting It All Hang Out

Last updated on: February 25, 2014 at 7:09 am By Tania Runyan

I was zoning out at a red light when a shiny object—or, shall I say, two shiny objects—caught my eye. Dangling from the back of a pickup truck a pair of large metal testicles sparkled in the subzero sun. I shot a picture before the light turned green and posted it to Facebook when I got home: “Please, Lord,” I wrote, “don’t let my daughter grow up to date a guy with testes on his truck.” The responses came fast... Read more

The Rich, the Poor, and Jesus

Last updated on: March 3, 2014 at 5:11 pm By Vic Sizemore

In November of 2013, Oxfam International released the results of a study that found an ever-growing concentration of the world’s wealth into the hands of a very few. The Irish Times quoted Oxfam chief executive Winnie Byanyima: “It is staggering that in the 21st century, half of the world’s population—that’s three and a half billion people—own no more than a tiny elite whose numbers [eighty-five souls] could all fit comfortably on a double-decker bus.” The concerns of Oxfam over the findings... Read more

What Our Children See

Last updated on: February 19, 2014 at 6:20 pm By Tony Woodlief

“Your child,” says the executive director of a national sex-education organization, “is going to look at porn at some point. It’s inevitable.” The first woman I saw bare-breasted, her legs splayed for the pleasure of men, was posed in the slick pages of a magazine stashed in my stepfather’s dresser drawer. He kept this woman and others like her hidden, but not well enough. Often when I was alone, I would go into that darkness to see what lay there.... Read more