The greatest freedom is not to be found ahead—-in the land of what comes next. It’s not what we can slide into when we get past the moment we’re in. Because when the future gets here it will be the present and just as burdened by the expectation that the better day is the one […]
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
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 […]
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? […]
I fantasize about an ending, a fitting denouement, Because all arcs descend to resolution, flood tides recede to mud flats, but Some journeys are a one-way ticket and end in distant homes, where I, for one, never intended to rest. –Alex Joyner
There’s a special kind of glory in the writing of those who bring extraordinary attention and a capacious spiritual vocabulary to the business of describing the world as it is. The Irish seem to have such glory in spades, even in the diaspora. And it certainly touched the late Brian Doyle, whose essays have been […]
TRIDUUM: HOLY SATURDAY Yes, there’s a day for longing, for lighting candles, looking out. The wind blows back against the creek, but the tide carries it out nonetheless. A spectral cloud lies low on the bay and billows fingers across the sky, Advancing on the unsuspecting land, visiting a chill on all who perceive. We […]
I’ve sung the praises of Mary Karr on Heartlands before, recognizing a seminal moment in my own development as a writer and human being that was spurred by her 2008 presentation at the Festival of Faith & Writing. But my very first introduction to Karr, the memoirist and poet, was a book that was given […]
My trembling finger once marked a woman in a year I knew would end the ritual of her annual ash. ‘Remember you are dust…” I faltered on the rest. Do doctors feel so transgressive when they are forced to break the polite illusion of immortality? We all know it’s not true. Death haunts our every […]
‘Let it learn in sackcloth colors to thrive on desire alone.’ —Kimberly Johnson, ‘Ash Garden’ What if what ails us is that we are not hungry enough? Hear me out. This week the Christian calendar turns to the season of Lent, a time when Christians have traditionally reexamined their lives in light of Jesus’ journey […]
