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Observing Carson McCullers Day
February 19 – the 101st birthday of Carson McCullers, author of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and other Southern Gothic masterpieces. Followers of this blog will know of my fascination with McCullers, one of the great writers about longing. Or what the poet Nick Norwood has called “spiritual isolation.” But there are moments when →
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In Praise of Uncomfortable Books: Huck & Harper Revisited
Huck and Harper are on the block again and I’m not comfortable with that. Then again, I think it’s high time we all got uncomfortable. In late 2016, as I was beginning Heartlands, I reflected on the controversy that was roiling Accomack County, Virginia where I live. Only that’s not strictly accurate. The decision by →
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Lay Minister Expels Ghosts, Sees Two Rural Churches Turnaround
“I look around my church and all I see are ghosts.” It was time for a pastoral change and I was meeting with the Pastor-Parish Relations Committee in my role as the District Superintendent, preparing the church and myself as we looked toward the appointment of a new pastor. The woman speaking was a longtime →
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Teenager Abuses Hand Sanitizer, Finds Self: The Beauty in John Green’s Turtles All the Way Down
Aza has a hard time getting out of her head. Worse yet, she’s beginning to wonder if she’s really here at all. For all the choice she feels she has, she might as well be fictional. “Your life is a story told about you,” she muses at the beginning of John Green’s Turtles All the →
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How to Get Out of the Inner Circle: Ministry with the Poor
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.” [Philippians 2:5-6, NRSV] This, I believe, is one of →
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A Rose Still Blooms Post-Brexit: A Review of Ali Smith’s Autumn
Autumn is the season for reflection. A cold wind blows and you wonder how many more winters you have in you. Golden leaves burnished by a golden sunset rustle in the limbs above and you remember how they used to thrill you. “The trees are revealing their structures. There’s the catch of fire in the →
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The Power Asks Us to Consider #WeToo: A Review
Naomi Alderman’s provocative new book, The Power, is more simply described without the definite article. Power, and how it infuses human relationships, particularly gender relationships, hums though this book like an electric current. And just like that current, it can turn fearsome and deadly in an instant. The Power is an acknowledged heir to Margaret →
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Love Stinks (But it Also Wins): A Delayed Review of Rob Bell
The problem with love is it’s easy to sentimentalize. O heck, there are many problems with love, sentimentalizing being the least of them. Love distorts our vision. Love lets us down. Love keeps us in relationships we should have left. Love is a knife to the heart and a passionate madness. Yes, love is a →
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Crossing into Mythical Mexico with Cormac McCarthy: A Review of The Crossing
Cormac McCarthy doesn’t need any more accolades from the likes of me. His reputation as a great American writer seems pretty secure. But as a recent convert to the ranks of his fans, I have to say of The Crossing – wow. That’s probably sufficient. I’m not going to be an equal to his prose →
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How to Know Your Mission Field: Adapting with Jacob Armstrong
Jacob Armstrong, founding pastor of Providence Church in Mt. Joliet, Tennessee, offered a provocative and helpful workshop on evangelism during the 5 Talent Academy in Virginia last October. Provocative enough that I bought his book, The New Adapters: Shaping Ideas to Fit Your Congregation [Abingdon, 2015]. In an occasional series, I’m going to take a look at →
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