Daring to Do the Good: The Knight and the Theologian
By Essay Issue 89
WRITING FROM HIS SMALL CELL in a German prison, the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer advised his family and friends to read the lengthy novel Witiko by Adalbert Stifter—the book that gave him great comfort from the time of his arrest in 1943 until his execution in 1945 for his involvement in the plot to kill Hitler.…
Read MoreWalking the Dog Last Night
By Poetry Issue 89
While my dog examined the yellow messages On lampposts And in the dry grass And morsed back messages of its own I asked myself Am I holding the dog by the leash Or is it the other way around And the dog is holding me? Maybe it seems foolish to involve God in this But…
Read MoreHolding Away the Dark
By Poetry Issue 88
Fiche bliain ag fás, Fiche bliain ag borradh ’sag at, Fiche bliain ag titim, Fiche bliain cuma tú ann nó as. ___________ —Traidisiúnta, Déisibh Mumhan 1. Dead leaves scrape across the paving of the derelict church. A small crowd is gathered with candles. A priest sits by a white-clothed table. How long more can we…
Read MoreShouts and Whispers
By Essay Issue 39
HAVING been a participant in any number of roundtables and panels on the state of religion in America, and in particular the relationship between faith and culture, I’ve grown accustomed to hearing my conservative colleagues argue that contemporary writers of faith are flabby compared to the more muscular writers of the early and mid-twentieth century.…
Read MoreReminder
By Poetry Issue 54
For God is in heaven, and you upon earth. —Ecclesiastes 5:2 Don’t take your eyes off the road. Accept nothing as given. Watch where you put your hands. You’re here and God’s in heaven. Be careful where you step. The drop-off’s somewhere near. The fog won’t lift tonight. God’s in heaven. You’re here. That word…
Read MoreA Metaphorical God
By Essay Issue 87
The following is adapted from the preface to The Operation of Grace: Further Essays on Art, Faith, and Mystery. My God, my God, thou art a direct God, may I not say a literal God, a God that wouldst be understood literally and according to the plain sense of all that thou sayest? but thou art…
Read MoreCreed in the Santa Ana Winds
By Poetry Issue 86
You believe He’s stronger than the desert wind butting against the fence, wind that ignites sagebrush, tears through the hills and strips the houses to ash. Despite your lips that crack till blood comes, skin that grows rough between your fingers, you believe He will be solid to your touch the way the bay is…
Read MoreOld River
By Essay Issue 55
Why Believe in God? Over the past few years, the Image staff contemplated assembling a symposium based on this simple problem. But we hesitated. Should we pose such a disarmingly straightforward question to artists and writers, who tend to shun the explicit and the rational? Or were we hesitating because the question itself made us…
Read MoreScientific Method
By Essay Issue 55
Why Believe in God? Over the past few years, the Image staff contemplated assembling a symposium based on this simple problem. But we hesitated. Should we pose such a disarmingly straightforward question to artists and writers, who tend to shun the explicit and the rational? Or were we hesitating because the question itself made us…
Read MoreFacts about the Moon
By Essay Issue 55
Why Believe in God? Over the past few years, the Image staff contemplated assembling a symposium based on this simple problem. But we hesitated. Should we pose such a disarmingly straightforward question to artists and writers, who tend to shun the explicit and the rational? Or were we hesitating because the question itself made us…
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