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
‘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 […]
In honor of Carson McCullers’ birthday: I could be difficult like Carson McCullers. I could drink too much have wild fantasies about what the next exciting trip would be believe that I deserved to be loved and doted on love inordinately but badly treat those around me with indifference All because of genius—charge it to […]
An Advent devotional I wrote for the Fleming Rutledge-oriented site Advent Begins in the Dark by the folks behind the Crackers & Grape Juice podcast… https://crackersandgrapejuice.com/the-long-longing/
I gotta say I’m really proud of the title I gave my review for this book: “Praying with Fire.” See what I did there? OK, don’t let my humor keep you from Jamie Quatro’s Fire Sermon. Your own sense of propriety and tolerance for carnal mysticism might put you off this novel, but to me it […]
There’s a lot going on up on Lookout Mountain. The battle of Chickamauga is not really over. 89-year-old Eva Bock braves traffic to walk up Lula Lake Road to deliver snail mail to President Bush protesting the war. A mainline church takes Corbett Earnshaw’s abrupt confession of disbelief as a sign and demolishes their building […]
“Dear God: Can you forgive someone for an act they cannot repent of?” (26) So goes Maggie’s prayer journal in the aftermath of an affair in Jamie Quatro’s new novel, Fire Sermon. Maggie has committed to move on. Has cut off communication with the poet she spent one night with in Chicago. In one light, […]
‘What is this world but a seed of desire some dream-bent farmer sowed in a field waiting for the end of winter, waiting to be getting on with business of timothy and clover?’ —Abigail Carroll, ‘Spring Forward’ God is a dream-bent farmer sowing the seed of desire. Time leaves us this task. It is time’s […]
Heartlands 