By Chad Thomas Johnston He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. —Isaiah 53:3 Six or seven years ago, a coworker of mine played a drunken game of chicken with a semi-truck on his bike at ten o’clock at night. His funeral doubled as a memorial service and an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. My coworker, whom I will... Read more
I’m a bit Type A for a poet—or for what people perceive as one. I like to know when and where I’m going with my writing, and why. This is no apology. Without specific goals, I wouldn’t have written a thing since becoming a parent twelve years ago. I make the time and space to write, even perching atop an ottoman in the corner of a stairway to scratch out drafts in the early, nauseated hours of my pregnancies. My... Read more
I’ve had the experience of dealing with renters from time to time, though more in the capacity of property manager than as landlord. It has been one of the ugliest, most unpleasant things a person can go through in business. You might say, “Well, everybody knows that—people don’t really respect what they don’t own.” True, I suppose, to a degree. But then, I’ve rented property for most of my life, in one way or the other, and it would be... Read more
By Dyana Herron Over the past couple of months, facing two family crises that impact the whole relational web of my tribe down in Tennessee, I’ve learned something about myself: I’m not very good at fessing up to my own needs. Instead I am attentive—sometimes over-attentive—to the needs of others. Instead of saying, “I need help,” I ask, “How can I help you?” Instead of saying, “I need someone to talk to,” I ask, “Is there anything you want to... Read more
My children attend public middle and high school; hence the school year always begins with the ritual of the sports physical. There’s a clinic at the orthopedic surgeon’s office: five doctors, three hundred students, all in a line waiting to have their nuts grabbed and their eyes checked. At the end of the summer, the teenagers are well tanned, their skin darkened, hair bleached out so they resemble palominos, particularly the long-legged girls in small shorts. Their straight blond manes... Read more
There is no writing more precious and self-indulgent than the essay about the difficulty of writing, so I will not write an essay about that. The truth is that writing is easy if you have a little talent. A little talent affords some writers a fine living, in fact. The only real pain comes not from the act of writing, but from a voice hovering in your ear, which may be your conscience or your mother but most likely is... Read more
The summer after my freshman year in college, I made the mistake of signing a lease without noticing that the place had no air conditioning. The lease was for a bedroom in an informal boardinghouse set up by the widowed owner of a large, falling-apart, turn-of-the-century house in Uptown New Orleans. (But of course!, you ’re thinking, she is making this up for literary effect!) If only I were making this up for literary effect. I signed the lease because I... Read more
Friday we took the kids and hit the road for Aiken, South Carolina. We were going down to attend a memorial service for my sister’s stepson Tyler. Tyler was sixteen years old. The service was nice. The pastor had lost a six-year-old daughter to asthma, and was particularly tuned in to the family’s pain. My nephew Jesse wrote a letter to Tyler, which one of his friends stood and read for him. He wrote to Tyler, “You were so warm,... Read more
By Allison Backhous Troy I’m emerging from one of the busiest seasons of my life. My wedding and a move from Michigan to Wyoming have filled my summer with enough checklists and tasks to keep me running around until one in the morning, until I finally put myself to bed, the set of tomorrow’s tasks stuttering in my ear while I try to sleep. I’ve been asked numerous times how I’ve held up under the stress. How I deal with... Read more
By Brian Volck Continued from yesterday. In describing the nature of things, the sciences and faith also remind us of the following: The universe need not be intelligible. When Isaac Newton published his Principia Mathematica in 1687, he didn’t explain what made objects fall to earth or planets revolve around the sun. He showed instead how gravity works mathematically. That Newton’s equations suggest gravity works across a vacuum and at a distance infuriated followers of René Descartes. But the Cartesians’... Read more
Good Letters
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