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Meeting Esau
Thursday January 12, 2012
I don’t know how my brother prepares to meet me. I just know what I perceive when I arrive at his house. Outside: designer mailbox at the curb; jet black Mustang in the driveway; perfectly groomed lawn; privacy fence around the pool. Inside: pristine surfaces—counters, floors, walls; fashionably dressed, well behaved, straight A, photogenic daughters; bottle of vintage wine, brought up from the cellar just for....
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Following the Line
Wednesday January 11, 2012
Perhaps I was more open to the creative possibilities of cardboard because we’d gotten home, the night before, from two days on silent retreat. Perhaps the gift of not having to speak, of not thinking in terms of response or initiative or any other motive for uttering words, of openness that comes from hearing one’s internal chatter die down—perhaps all this created a space where I could get away from imposed....
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Jesus Freak Reunion
Tuesday January 10, 2012
And so December 28th has come again. Thirty-five years ago the forty people who fill this lovely home lived together. They bought houses in the Columbus, Ohio ghetto and crammed into them; spouses, infants, single people, dogs, cats, goats, and assorted homeless persons or drug addicts picked up off the street. Then it gradually fell apart, or transitioned into normal American life, depending on the person....
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No Faking It
Monday January 9, 2012
Though I’m not Aryan (German-Irish), I was raised in typical Midwestern household that preached (though we were Catholic) the Protestant work ethic of discipline and moderation, making the syncopation of jazz and the soulful, showy, one-upmanship of improvising both thrillingly liberating, and the key to showing me how artists (I knew none) work if they expect to be successful....
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The String of Words
Friday January 6, 2012
Often it’s a string of words that connect us, my sons and me. We talk by phone on the days we’re apart. The divorce is final. They hurt, and I hurt, and there’s nothing to be done about it now but to love each other through the hell of it. I thought hard about what books to give them this Christmas. I want to have this with them, the sharing of lovely words. I want this, but I feel them drifting into cotton candy....
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Current Issue
Issue 71
Fiction by Larry Woiwode, interview with Joe Henry, art by Fabian Debora, essay by Barry Moser.
Good Letters: The Image Blog
