I eat a pretzel in the presence of my enemies. (They have assembled in Charlottesville.) To be a man of men, I sip my whiskey neat in the presence of my enemies. (They march on the nightly news.) I present my failed masterpiece in the presence of my enemies. (The other painters in the juried…

­I’m trying to trust in God. My husband has had chronic fatigue and chest pain for the five years since his quadruple bypass open-heart surgery. Sometimes less discomfort, sometimes more, but always there. His various doctors have tried everything to relieve his distress…but nothing works. He is suffering, and it naturally pains me to see…

I once saw a girl beaned in the head with a Bible. Her attacker was a well-muscled star of our middle school football team, so his throw was hard, accurate, and had a bit of a spiral. To be fair, the weapon wasn’t a full Bible, neither was it large. Someone in this guy’s group…

This is an age of the world when nations are trembling and convulsed. A mighty influence is abroad, surging and heaving the world, as with an earthquake. And is America safe? Every nation that carries in its bosom great and un-redressed injustice has in it the elements of this last convulsion. As I was reading…

Waking from the Nightmare A little girl awakens in an autumn wood. She stands, looks up through the red-orange fire of the leaves to see a small patch of white sky. Then she brushes the leaves from her cardigan and walks out of the frame. Someone screams. The idyll is broken. We’re back in the…

The light on the ceiling of our bedroom is slanted in a parody of the open doorway, letting in the blue glow of a nightlight from the hall. This nightly and usually innocuous shape hides something in the darkness tonight; I see it creeping in the light box, plotting something against me, about to attack.…

It has been said that one of the most effective means by which evil can have its way is to convince us that we are too abominable to love. It’s not a bad tactic. When our faults are catalogued back to us, the inventory is hair-raising and earth-shattering. This is one of the methods attributed…

His back to us and to the camera, the hero walks silently away. His work in this particular community is done. He has restored the community to its better self. This is the closing image of the classic 1947 film The Bishop’s Wife, which I watched recently. Cary Grant as the angel Dudley—sent to guide…

I was so good, and for such a long time, two weeks at least of decent work and adherence to my schedule. Two weeks of self control, discipline, and a rule—twenty minutes of prayer, ten of spiritual reading, thirty of new writing, one to two hours of old writing and editing, fifteen of cleaning and…

Two Poets Laureate On Grief, Detachment, and Finding New Ways to Live, Part 1   In my role as the curator of three literary guides to prayer for Paraclete Press (At the Still Point, Light Upon Light, and the newly-released Between Midnight and Dawn), I have the coolest job. Not only do I get to…