I don’t have much time. I’m sitting in a coffee shop less than a mile from my house and place of employment feverishly re-reading Dana Gioia’s recent First Things essay “The Catholic Writer Today” and pounding out these words. But in an hour I will need to pack up my laptop and books and make the walk back—my morning course “The Elements of Fiction” starts at 9:50 am. There are two ways of making the walk, one practical the other... Read more
I’ve always wanted to have class by the fireplace, she said. Great, let’s do that. We can burn our books in the fire, I said. We can decorate the room with swastikas, I said. It was the last day of classes. It was a week past my stepdaughter’s due date. The class was droopy. Then I suggested we burn books and adorn the hallowed walls of the Laurel Forum, home of the honors program, with banners bearing swastikas. Surprised, shocked—entertained—they... Read more
Guest Post by Joel Heng Hartse I’m writing my dissertation right now and for once I am trying to be bold, to not worry about whether what I am arguing has been substantiated by someone with more knowledge or status than myself. This is probably what is called for. Sometimes, though, it is nice to shut up and let the wise ones have their say. This is my sixth annual end-of-the-year playlist for Good Letters, and unlike previous years, I... Read more
Guest Post by Tania Runyan I’m washing dishes while my third-grade daughter and her friend blast a One Direction song: “Oooh oh, you don’t know you’re beautiful,” whines the mop-haired adolescent singer. “Uh, yeah I do!” I shout, and shake my butt at the sink. The girls scream and scramble from the room. The song attempts to come off affirmingly: the girl lacks confidence and stares at the ground, but she’s actually gorgeous, so much so that—get this—she doesn’t even... Read more
Guest Post by Kathleen L. Housley In November, I attended a colloquy presented by Image on Evolution and the Imago Dei: The Artist as Translator—a significant subject about which I could write pages. Instead, I am going to write aboutsomething simpler: the value of people coming together, to be near each other, to talk face to face. The word face is important in the Bible; it means to turn toward, to stand opposite, to look someone in the eye. To... Read more
Consider the coffee table. It’s a venerable and eminently practical piece of furniture. Most of us have at least one. It’s a great place to put centerpieces, books, even literary journals. Some of us may put our coffee mugs on it from time to time. But have you ever noticed how often these days that coffee tables aren’t coffee tables? Walker Percy did. In Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Guide, Percy noted that a home and garden magazine... Read more
Image, the sponsor of this blog, played a central role in the publication of God For Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Lent and Easter, which has recently been released. 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. Today we interview James Calvin Schaap.... Read more
Not long ago a young man announced on a video chat site that he intended to kill himself, and that he would let people watch, if only he could have help setting up the video feed. Someone gladly complied, and so the boy positioned his camera, sat in his chair, and washed down a handful of pills with alcohol. Afterward he set a fire in the corner of his room. Then he crawled into the darkness beneath his bed and... Read more
I once watched a boy steal all my Christmas presents. I lay on my stomach and stared through a sweaty blur as he grabbed my box-full of gifts and scampered into the woods. I did not chase him; propped on one elbow staring as he ran, I did not even rise from my stomach. The presents were gone. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, I was camped out with my Marine unit in the woods at Cheat... Read more
A few years ago, I learned about a church—an Evangelical Free Church—that holds an annual evening service called Blue Christmas on December 21, the longest night of the year. It’s a service welcoming all who feel “blue” at Christmas-time, whether because of a personal loss or illness or addiction or any other sorrow. Anyone present at the service who requests prayers is wrapped in one of the shawls that the church’s prayer shawl group has been knitting all year. The... Read more
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