In the tradition of classic essayists from Virginia Woolf to Annie Dillard, Meghan Florian combines personal narrative with careful analysis, taking the ordinary material of undramatic daily life and distilling it into moments of clarity and revelation. Centering each essay in this collection on a different aspect of coming of age as a feminist woman within the ethos of the theological academy and the church, Florian interrogates the problems th ...
In addition to being entertaining, these poems pose questions for Christians, whether new converts or seasoned believers. In many cases they can function as a checklist for the depth of one's faith. ...
The poems in Phases are as interested in the creeping penumbral edge of language as they are in the shadowy fact of faith. Playful experiments with form swing to the conceptual ring's apogee, while a colloquy across history and place center the proverbial orbit. ...
These poems offer a spiritual biography of a remarkable woman of faith, a Benedictine Oblate and spiritual adviser who lived her life according to St. Benedict's Holy Rule («ora and labora»–pray and work). Juxtaposed with poems on her life, others reflect on Benedictine traditions such as praying the Liturgy of the Hours, taking vows of stability, hospitality, silence, plus engendering respect for the environment and all living things. This ...
Flannery O'Connor and Fyodor Dostoevsky shared a deep faith in Christ, which compelled them to tell stories that force readers to choose between eternal life and demonic possession. Their either-or extremism has not become more popular in the last fifty to a hundred years since these stories were first published, but it has become more relevant to a twenty-firstt-century culture in which the lukewarm middle ground seems the most comfortable ...
In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer asks a basic human question: How do we overcome tyranny? His answer goes to the heart of a revolutionary way of thinking about the very end of human existence and the nature of created being. His answer, declared performatively over the course of a symbolic pilgrimage, urges the view that humanity has an intrinsic need of grace in order to be itself. In portraying this outlook, Chaucer contributes to wha ...
Recinos discovered a love for poetry living on the streets after being abandoned by immigrant Latino parents. At age sixteen, a White Presbyterian minister made him part of his family and guided him back to school. Recinos finished high school, attended undergraduate school in Ohio and later graduate school in New York, where he befriended the Nuyorican poet, the late Miguel Pinero, who encouraged him to write and read poetry at the Nuyorican po ...
These poems started with a bag of children's beach toys–primary-colored alphabet sand-molds–and a quiet afternoon. They ended up needing a spreadsheet to keep track of the first words. «Love» is the "L" word for all the disorderly abecedarians because it creates a thread with which to gather all the ribbons of art, religion, human cruelty, anger, and the infinite intrusions by the random that both buffer us from a frequently distressing wor ...
The Turning Aside is about stepping out of our routines–like Moses turning from tending sheep, like a certain man selling his everything to buy a field–to take time to consider the ways of God in the company of some of the finest poets of our time. Turn aside with such established poets as Wendell Berry, Les Murray, Luci Shaw, Elizabeth Jennings, Richard Wilbur, Dana Gioia, and Christian Wiman–and respond to their invitation for us to muse along ...
