Issue 101

As Aristotle knew, for our lives to be complete, there must be something that we desire to do for its own sake—something that is not a means to an end, but an end in itself.

There was no religion in our house. For years I thought it was a hole, a gap in the woodwork I needed to fill.

In Siena’s basilica, Saint Catherine’s head, freed from its reliquary, now stands in its ownskin, incorrupt on the silver altar, the teeth still visiblein that open air.

It has been a bad decade for God. To begin with, we are losing women.

It’s always the woman looking over her shoulder, some man chasing her past herself.

You can read something spoken or written by somebody from a very different place or time or background or state of being—and it can feel true anyway.

This is no parable, Jesus tells his disciples. I want to show you in between my wordsa carnal will to be reborn.

Perceiving less than I can fathom, I name more than I can know.

By inadequacies of word, of form, I have reached for you.

In your abandonment you are beloved; in exile you are saved.