Last weekend, I cooked lunch for three farmers. One of them was my husband. The other two were a couple who were being forced to close down the small organic vegetable farm they’d been building together for nearly a decade. I could see the loss in their weary smiles, in the holes in their clothes, in the fact that they were even sitting with us. They were usually working so hard that they didn’t have time to go anywhere. They’d... Read more
Of all the Gospel episodes, the Annunciation has long been one of the favorites of poets. The scene is unique and literally earth-shaking: Gabriel’s sudden appearance to the girl Mary, his announcement that she will bear a son who will be “the Son of the Most High,” her puzzlement (“How can this be, since I am a virgin?”), and her final yes—“Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word.” (more…) Read more
Where do our words come from? And our lives: how do they connect with those (whether persons or words) now dead but perhaps living on—in ways we can almost touch, almost speak? These are the complex questions that Margaret Gibson raises and wraps her own language around in this remarkable poem. For all their complexity, the questions are explored by Gibson in a most accessible, inviting way. Beginning with her discovery of a poem written in her youth, she moves... Read more
By Camellia Freeman This story has many beginnings. It begins with the great state of Ohio where I’d made my home for eight years. We lived in Columbus, and on late nights my husband and I would walk its city streets during summers so thick you could wade through them, cicada choruses surging like electric currents through the air, and we would talk at length about how I both dreaded and longed for the day we might leave. It begins... Read more
I was born with a certain level of anxiety in my blood—an electric edge that keeps me vigilant, wise, creative, and, arguably, a little humorous at times. As a child, I funneled much of my worst-case-scenario thinking into colorful stories that helped me face pain and fear head-on while developing an imagination that would shape the rest of my life. My propensity toward uptight, Type-A thinking has helped me keep a relatively organized house and healthy to-do list, and I... Read more
Waking from the Nightmare A little girl awakens in an autumn wood. She stands, looks up through the red-orange fire of the leaves to see a small patch of white sky. Then she brushes the leaves from her cardigan and walks out of the frame. Someone screams. The idyll is broken. We’re back in the nightmare forest in the middle of Vehlmann and Kerascoët’s Beautiful Darkness, where a host of tiny creatures struggle for survival. The scream came from one... Read more
The days following the election have been dark indeed. People unhappy with the outcome fear for many Americans’ safety and freedoms. Supporters of the president-elect feel alienated and misunderstood. The nation’s unsettled tenor reminds me of that post-9/11 haze in which we stumbled through our days unsure of what would happen next. Except this time we’re moving through a haze divided. Yet in these distressing times, a number of us have felt emboldened to love more and notice more: to... Read more
Dear friends, We are entering a season of thanksgiving, and soon we’ll begin a season of reflection as we prepare to celebrate a remarkable birth that changed human history. I begin with thanksgiving. On behalf of all the staff at Image, thank you. Thank you for being part of our community. Thank you for your subscriptions and financial support. Thank you for receiving this letter with grace, knowing that we, as so many charities do this time of year, will... Read more
I have beauty on the mind. No doubt a result of my ongoing debate with Gregory Wolfe (running into its fourth iteration now). We’ve been chatting, lo these many weeks, about the relevance of the religious voice to contemporary debates on aesthetical matters. When you’re talking about aesthetics, the question of beauty tends to rear its head sooner or later. This can be a scary moment. That’s because it’s hard to talk about beauty—hard, even, to define in any satisfying... Read more
Church Ladies. Most of them are pretty darn good souls. They’re at the church every day, bent over pews, cleaning the sanctuary, baking pies, and keeping all the committees peopled. They’re also gorgeously individual souls with their own private concerns, loves, and extracurricular interests. But everyone’s probably known at least one church lady like the iconic Church Lady rendered by Dana Carvey on Saturday Night Live: easily scandalized and convinced that even benign things are the property of Satan. I’ve... Read more
Good Letters
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