More on: God

Qui diceris Paraclitus (O Comforter, to Thee we cry) __________—“Veni, Creator Spiritus” Come at me, Comforter. I strain toward your inrushing arrow as it halves then halves then halves the distance that severs us. Till kingdom comes its Zeno-arrow lurches in time lapse, not still where it was, not yet in that place where it…

This, then, is the complete game: disappearance and return. ——————————————————————Freud [In craps, the “point” is a dice-cast that must be rolled again before a seven to win the bet. Seven, though, is the most common cast, so the odds always disfavor any repetition of the point.] I came to all the senses that would come…

What is this world but the absence of God, his withdrawal, his distance (which we call space), his waiting (which we call time), his footprint (which we call beauty)? God could only create the world by withdrawing from it (otherwise there would be nothing but God), or by remaining in the form of absence, hiddenness,…

O I say these are not the parts and poems of the Body only, but of the Soul, O I say now these are the Soul! —Walt Whitman By the second week in September nuthatches capture the last elderberries, excrement purpled and extravagant, sprayed drunkenly across my truck’s hood. I’ve been thinking about the God…

Ya-Quddus One of the ninety-nine names of God Yours is the name of God that comes most easily to me— God holy, pure, perfect as geometry, that which is set apart. God to whom I pray, though I deserve no favors. And would you, Ya-Quddus, whom I simply call God, Lord, bargain with my heart…

Morgan Meis blogs about philosophy and art criticism at The Smart Set. His essay “Conversion” in Image Issue 80 takes an oblique approach to his coming into the Catholic Church–it’s at least as much a portrait of the elderly Sri Lankan nun who catechized him as it is a personal essay.    Image: You are a…

Boston, 1688 Four years before Salem would lose itself to hysteria, Mather knew already the subtle workings of the devil, how an oak might shrivel overnight, its leaves as brown and parched as hostler’s leather; or a widow’s fields surrender to drought, her sons unable to save them, while a neighbor’s thrived. Only by confession…

The Road Behind Us Image’s Founding Generation When Image was founded in 1989, the cultural landscape looked different than it does today. Religious writers and artists felt cold-shouldered in the public square and often ill at ease within the church. The need for a journal that demonstrated the continuing vitality of contemporary art informed by…

The Road Ahead Voices for the Next Twenty-Five Years Many gifted artists and writers of faith working today were just learning how to read and hold their crayons when Image was founded. They never experienced the culture wars of the eighties that weighed so heavily on an older generation; theirs are a different set of…

The Road Ahead Voices for the Next Twenty-Five Years Many gifted artists and writers of faith working today were just learning how to read and hold their crayons when Image was founded. They never experienced the culture wars of the eighties that weighed so heavily on an older generation; theirs are a different set of…