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Leaving Nebraska: Revisiting Willa Cather in the Pandemic
Willa Cather can make you believe that Nebraska is a little more idyllic than your particular piece of America. Prairie flowers bloom near fields of waving wheat. Sturdy immigrant farmers build sturdy farmhouses and some residents install hammocks on the upper porch to sleep out under the stars on summer evenings. Even the fierce winter… →
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The Enduring Myth of the Texas Rangers
While the Washington football team and the Cleveland baseball team were both undergoing public struggles about the appropriateness of their nicknames, my own favorite baseball team, the Texas Rangers,was called out by several national columnistsfor a similar soul-searching. Theodore Roosevelt, (yes, THAT Teddy Roosevelt) made the case for both sides back before there was even… →
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Seeing the Way to ‘You Can,’ When the World Says ‘You Can’t’
What if your job was to go around blessing people? What if, instead of lamenting all that is wrong, you got to say, “There is something terribly, terribly, right with the world”? And what if you got to say this thing in the very places that get written off as ‘God-forsaken’? Michael Mather has such… →
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Raising the M-word in an Economic Crisis
I’m excited to talk about money…said no church person ever. Well, that’s not entirely true. We imagine that the snake-oil version of preacher is always ready to go there with an appeal for money, which only makes us more hesitant to raise the M-word. In most churches I work with, when we do have a… →
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Poetry: Hold It Open
Just hold it open a little longer this heart. Don’t imagine it makes you weak this open heart. Don’t shame it for its bank-busting floods of desire this heart. Don’t neglect its world-making power this longing heart. Follow it today in all its wisdom this heart. –Alex Joyner →
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Why a 1939 Story Helps in 2020
Maybe we have been here before. With pandemic running rampant, economic devastation, and protest settling in for a long spell, it can seem that humanity has never been to this place. But we have and I went back to a short novel from 1939 to get the news. On the eve of the Second World… →
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The Case for Ending UNRWA: A Review of The War of Return
A few years ago, as I was researching a book about Israel and Palestine, [A Space for Peace in the Holy Land: Listening to Modern Israel & Palestine], I visited a refugee camp in Nablus on the West Bank. Named Balata, it was home to about 25,000 people, all living cheek by jowl in one… →
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Christian Wiman Has Nothing to Prove, And Yet He Does
Christian Wiman has nothing to prove. His output in recent years sparkles: Joy: 100 Poems, an anthology he edited with a title so out of step with the times that it circled back around to surprise us that we could feel such a thing as joy just now. He Held Radical Light: The Art of… →
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Breathe: by Guest Blogger Kathy McGinty
Kathy McGinty, a Safety Officer at Johns Hopkins Hospital, gave permission for Heartlands to publish this essay, which powerfully connects all the ways we can’t breathe right now. When the pandemic of 2020 hit the United States, I could not imagine what a startling change it would bring. Working as a Physical Therapist Assistant in… →
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Poetry: It’s Not The Wind
The wind never stops. It’s been blowing for months. Picking up speed over the broad waters of the bay, blasting the Shore with its insistent fury. It’s unrelenting, leaving us no peace. Like a person who can’t shut up and just keeps yammering on. What is it about the wind that ruffles my feathers?… →
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