Art as a Common Gift

Last updated on: April 16, 2013 at 9:12 am By Tony Woodlief

Given the several ways of modernist art it is logical to conclude that the production of things to see and read is not a rare or special gift. —Jacques Barzun, Dawn to Decadence A casual traipse through Tumblr—an Internet miscellany of photography, found art, confessional essays, and often painfully sentimental teenage poetry—indicates Barzun may have been right that the means of producing art “is populistically distributed to all or nearly all.” Toss in the explosion of self-publishing, add the pastiche... Read more

Mother of Sorrows: Colm Toibin’s Testament of Mary

Last updated on: April 16, 2013 at 8:43 am By Jessica Griffith

Good Letters welcomes back former blogger Jessica Mesman Griffith, author of the new book Love and Salt: A Spiritual Friendship Shared in Letters. “They appear more often now, both of them, and on every visit they seem more impatient with me and with the world,” begins Colm Toibin’s novella, The Testament of Mary. “There is something hungry and rough in them, a brutality boiling in their blood, which I have seen before and can smell as an animal that is... Read more

The Last Taboo in Hollywood, Take 3

Last updated on: April 23, 2013 at 3:10 pm By Bradford Winters

In yesterday’s post I did a “second take” (in keeping with the Hollywood motif) on my first post in this unanticipated sequence. Take 2 reconsidered my original point about “the gross lack of anything but lame portrayals of Christian characters in TV and film” in light of comments from readers that helped to correct me on one front (quantity of more nuanced portrayals) and adjust the terms of my argument on another front (quality of such nuanced portrayals). In this... Read more

The Last Taboo in Hollywood, Take 2

Last updated on: April 23, 2013 at 3:10 pm By Bradford Winters

I didn’t plan on there being a second take when I sat down to write “The Last Taboo in Hollywood,” my recent post here at Good Letters that took issue with the gross lack of anything but lame portrayals of Christian characters in TV and film. But after years of working in the business myself, I should have known better: only a fool ever expects to nail a scene—or in this case, a post—in one take. (more…) Read more

Wild-Eyed Youth Pastor

Last updated on: April 9, 2013 at 9:28 am By Vic Sizemore

I recently found an unexpected e-mail in my in-box. It was from Joe, my youth pastor from over twenty-five years ago. I haven’t spoken to him in as many years. He was reaching out to apologize for any spiritual harm he had done me all those years ago. The e-mail got me reminiscing. Joe was one of those youth pastors who seemed to have a sure calling, the kind of guy people called on fire for the Lord. He preached... Read more

Amour and Fear

Last updated on: April 12, 2013 at 6:17 pm By Guest Contributor

Guest Post By David P. Clark, M.D. On the day I graduated from medical school I took the oath of Hippocrates. I didn’t think much about the words: the oath was one more hoop on a long hot morning. My promise to keep patient confidences, always treat patients with justice, and never harm them seemed doable, straightforward, and common sense. But, I hadn’t actually been a doctor, hadn’t made decisions when faced with suffering and inadequate data and unknown futures.... Read more

On Roger Ebert and Cinematic Stockholm Syndrome

Last updated on: April 10, 2013 at 11:45 pm By Chad Thomas Johnston

For Chaz Ebert When I was a child in the ‘80s, a stranger who resembled Roger Ebert approached me in the line at the salad bar at the restaurant where my family was eating. My blood turned to ice water when he said, “Hi Chad—how’s it going?” I thought the man intended to kidnap me, and I darted back to my family’s table, fearful and fleet-footed. My parents explained that the man probably heard them call me by name, and... Read more

She Will Not Live a Small Life

Last updated on: April 4, 2013 at 4:34 pm By Allison Backous Troy

And all were guests. —Naomi Shihab Nye, “Arabic Coffee” The first thing that struck me about Moneerh was how much she terrified me: her face half-cloaked by her hijab, her dark eyes narrowed at me as I shuffled books, rushed through the steps of the lesson. “Teacher, please slow down,” she said, her voice muffled, yet insistent. “Please.” At the ESL center I help direct, most of our students are from the Middle East. They come on scholarships, looking to... Read more

More Poetry of Married Love

Last updated on: April 4, 2013 at 4:03 pm By Peggy Rosenthal

In a previous post, I used Richard Wilbur’s poem “for C” to talk about my long marriage with George. Today I want to fill in some of the blanks that got us to this point. My husband is recovering from open heart surgery. My doctor just informed me that my leukemia has reached a point where I have almost no healthy white cells left to fight infection—so even catching a cold could be the beginning of the end. Life’s fragility:... Read more

The Moveable Feast of Memory

Last updated on: April 5, 2013 at 9:47 am By David Griffith

There are moments when you take stock of everyone and everything around you because you want to remember them for the rest of your life. However impossible that actually is, you do it anyway. I think of it as civil disobedience against entropy, against whatever physical and chemical principles dictate the half-life of sense and memory. I had a moment several nights ago, March 27, the debut of my friend Tearrance Chisolm’s play “In Sweet Remembrance.” It also happened to... Read more