All of this fiscal year’s influences collided in one moment. Like a super-collider of influence.  In the picture: James Smith commenting on songwriter Josh Ritter’s forthcoming book on Josh Ritter’s website. Not to mention Josh Ritter’s book is next to a set of Graham Greene books. If Robert Penn Warren’s books had been on the […]

Conditions of Ambition #1

If my ambition, for my family; for my work; for my time is the kingdom of God, then my ambition becomes more an icon, and less an idol. If my ambition is the kingdom of God, then my family, work, and time must be a sign that points to something that ultimately gives my family, […]

On the second day of a trek into the Sawtooth Wilderness, in Idaho, we were all invited to spend twenty-four hours by ourselves…very soon, although the day was bright and unthreatening, I was cowering in my tent. Apparently, all it took for me to become aware of the emptiness of life and the horror of […]

Easter Poem

The Mistaken Gardener by Seth Wieck There was reclamation to be doneThe path being overrun with runnersMy foot having caught in the matrixof vines to skin my palms in the thorns that received me. Read the rest of the poem here.

From the far star points of his pinned extremities, cold inched in—black ice and squid ink— till the hung flesh was empty. Lonely in that void even for pain, he missed his splintered feet, the human stare buried in his face. He ached for two hands made of meat he could reach to the end […]

[vimeo 22716246 w=500 h=375] jeremycowart: “A Portrait of Christ” by Jeremy Cowart The process is a great way to understand Christ. (Source: https://player.vimeo.com/)

9.5 Theses on Beauty

By W. David O. Taylor Here then are 9.5 theses, a tenth of Luther’s number, in no particular order and by no means comprehensive. And a good cheer for not giving up on beauty altogether, because the world would be much poorer without it, theologically as well as actually. 9.5 Theses about beauty 1. Every […]

I pray that the dreams I have as an old man will lighten the vision in the eyes of young men.

Ash Wednesday

by T.S. Eliot Because I do not hope to turn again Because I do not hope Because I do not hope to turn Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope I no longer strive to strive towards such things (Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?) Why should I mourn The vanished power of the usual reign?  Because I do […]

We are fundamentally noncognitive, affective creatures. The telos [end] to which our love is aimed is not a list of ideas or propositions or doctrines; it is not a list of abstract, disembodied concepts or values. Rather, the reason that this vision of the good life moves us is because it is a more affective, […]