I went to a middle school dance the other night to watch my son’s band play the four songs they know. What I observed probably won’t surprise you. The boys at the dance reacted to the rock & roll. They jumped and wiggled—some even did what might be considered dancing—and ran and threw their bodies…

Monastic communities have traditionally encouraged lay associates: people drawn not to join the monastery but to absorb themselves in its spirituality and adapt as much of its practice as possible while living “in the world.” Creatively taking this concept of lay associates into the internet age, the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, Pennsylvania, have launched “Monasteries…

From time to time, things we have done that we should not have done are brought to our attention. I’m not talking about things we remember; I’m talking about things we don’t. These are things that we not only have no memory of, but also cannot truly fathom a response for. And when we are…

Around the time I decided to quit being a music critic (something I do every couple of years for good measure), the content of my “best of the year” playlists changed. They changed from being a record of my insatiable desire to find and consume new things to an attempt to more faithfully curate something…

It happens every January—movie ads fill up with boasts about awards they’ve won. Soon, those boasts will include Oscar nominations. And The Artist is currently the most boastful of all. Filmmaker Michael Hazanavicius’s tribute to Hollywood’s silent film era is stirring up enthusiasm among audiences and critics alike. Me, I enjoyed it. It was playful,…

It’s that time again: Time to share my favorite films of 2011. Today, I’ll share twenty-one silver medal winners—movies I admired very much. Tomorrow—the gold medalists—the top ten. I was asked to share this list on a Pittsburgh radio program last week. But we got sidetracked. The show hosts asked questions about a celebrity controversy…

Ever since Greg Wolfe started a Facebook thread about the movie, I’ve been thinking about Tree of Life—particularly the section depicting the birth of the universe. At first it appears to be a cinematic non-sequitur, and it seems also never to end. It does end, after almost twenty minutes away from the narrative. The big bang…

I lay my head down on the steering wheel of my car and burst into tears. From the back of the car, my seven-year-old son bleated over his seat, “I’m sorry, Mama! I didn’t mean it!” Outside the day wasn’t cold, but it was gray nonetheless, and the grungy, not-hardly-big-enough back parking lot of Politics…

I lamented my lack of preparation for the season. I longed for answers. I wished for a different experience of waiting. I hoped for 2011 to be wrapped and ribboned and placed under my spiritual tree with an explanatory card from God. (There is still time, God! Gifts accepted through Epiphany.) On the fourth Sunday…

Perhaps it’s embarrassing of me to admit this here at one of the dedicated hubs of their overall fan base, but until I was a fellow faculty member two summers ago at the Glen West Workshop hosted by Image, I had never heard of Over the Rhine—the musical/marital duo of Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist.…