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Dust Storms

THEY DO NOT HAPPEN NOW, the sandstorms of my childhood, when the western distance ochred, and the square emptied, and long before the big wind hit, you could taste the dust on your tongue, could feel the earth under you–and even something in you–seem to loosen slightly. Soon tumbleweeds began to skip and nimble by, […]

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[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/133302717″ params=”visual=true&liking=false&sharing=false&auto_play=false&show_comments=false&continuous_play=false&origin=tumblr” width=”100%” height=”500″ iframe=”true” /] Poet Christian Wiman reads “Every Riven Thing” in an excerpt from RN Encounter’s program, My Bright Abyss, about his recent work and spiritual journey. You can hear the full program at http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/encounter/my-bright-abyss/5223134

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It Was the Summer of ’69 (*1)

Begin here: Christ is contingency, I tell her as we cross the railroad tracks and walk down the dusty main street of this little town that is not the town where I was raised, but both reassuringly and disconcertingly reminiscent of it: the ramshackle resiliency of the buildings around the square; Spanish rivering right next to […]

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Modern spiritual consciousness is predicated upon the fact that God is gone, and spiritual experience, for many of us, amounts mostly to an essential, deeply felt and necessary but ultimately inchoate and transitory feeling of oneness or unity with existence. It is mystical and valuable, but distant. Christ, though, is a thorn in the brain. […]

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfuwVnggIKM?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=http://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque&w=500&h=375] Christian Wiman delivers the commencement address at North Central College in Illinois. It’s disheartening watching peoples’ expressions as the best speech they’ve ever heard flies over their heads. Unfortunately, I probably would have ignored it as a 22-year-old college graduate, too. More unfortunately, in ten years, I’ll probably regret the things I ignored […]

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poetrysince1912: The poet Christian Wiman is giving voice to the hunger for faith — and the challenges of faith — for people living now. After a Texas upbringing soaked in a history of violence and a charismatic Christian culture, he was agnostic until he became actively religious again in his late 30s. Then he was […]

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