One of my very favorite blogs is IMAGE Journal’s Good Letters blog (which is also housed here at Patheos), and one of my favorite writers for Good Letters is Tony Woodlief, who recently wrote about epiphanies and symbolism and what we believe: If readers can miss Flannery O’Connor’s symbolism, the same could be expected of anything less subtle. A woman gored by a god-like bull, Parker’s wife beating the face of Jesus on his back with a broomstick—this imagery is thick... Read more
The brilliant singer/songwriter Sandra McCracken is also a writer of beautiful articles, one of which appears on Art House America: Tonight after reading books with the children, as I tucked Rhodes into bed, I asked him what he was thinking about or if he wanted to talk about anything. (How often I miss offering important questions to the ones I love the most because I am distracted by the white noise of life together.) After a brief pause, Rhodes trembled... Read more
Denis Haack is a wise man, and over at The High Calling he recently wrote about discovering your calling, slowly: I didn’t know Margie was a writer when I married her. If I had known, I would have still married her, but still, I had no idea. Neither did she. I knew she was creative and intelligent, but the writing came later. It turns out to be one of her gifts, an essential part of her calling, but it was hidden or... Read more
My personality is such that I’m always trying to get to the next stage of something – whether it’s the next stage of mastery, or of a relationship, or of life. Sometimes it doesn’t look that way on paper, but something inside me always says that until I’m doing something perfectly, I am not doing it at all. (This is especially difficult when it comes to making art, like creative writing: you’re never really done with an essay or a story.)... Read more
I’ve realized in the past year that half – or maybe more – of my friends live far away from me, many on the West Coast. That’s a long trip from New York City. And due to work and travel schedules, sometimes it feels like my friends who are based in New York live far away, too! Under those circumstances, it can be difficult to sustain a friendship. But it’s not a new problem; there are plenty of books of... Read more
Check out a fascinating piece by Matt Haber over at the New York Times. In “A Trip to Camp to Break a Tech Addiction,” Haber chronicles his recent trip to Camp Grounded, a camp specifically envisioned to help people break their addictions to technology and rediscover the joys of embodied, relational living. Camp Grounded is the creation of Digital Detox, “an Oakland-based group dedicated to teaching technology-addled (or technology-addicted) people to, in the words of its literature, ‘disconnect to reconnect.'”... Read more
Over at The Curator, Eric Peters tells a story of finding good in an unexpected place – after having over five thousand dollars worth of equipment stolen: . . . If you’ve ever been the victim of theft, you no doubt are familiar with the empty, hollow feeling in the pit of your stomach. Of course, I invited the police over for a visit, provided serial numbers, filed a report, and called my insurance (none of it was covered), then... Read more
For many people in the U.S., today is a day off – and even if it isn’t, it’s the day after a national holiday, when plenty of us got to spend the day outside our normal routines, relaxing and spending time with family or friends. So this article caught my eye over at Verily: Stop and Smell the Coffee: For these Veneziani, the morning coffee was not just a means of rousing themselves for the tasks of the day. On... Read more
Happy Independence Day, Americans! (And happy belated Canada Day to any Canadians out there!) Of History and Hope By Miller Williams We have memorized America, how it was born and who we have been and where. In ceremonies and silence we say the words, telling the stories, singing the old songs. We like the places they take us. Mostly we do. The great and all the anonymous dead are there. We know the sound of all the sounds we brought.... Read more
Mark D. Roberts
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Well, this is fascinating: apparently web reviewers often make up reviews of things they have not bought – and the culprits aren’t, as you’d expect, the competitors. Rather, it’s loyal customers: The cranky customers are acting, the study concludes, as “self-appointed brand managers.” To put it another way, they are venting. The review forum gives them a simple and direct means of doing so: I hated this product, so listen to me. As Mr. Simester put it in an interview: “Your... Read more