Skip to content

Log Out

×

Why I’m Writing a Death Penalty Book for Teens

By Bryan BlissSeptember 14, 2017

1. I was standing in the kitchen of a rental house in the middle of forty acres of woods deep in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, when I told my agent I wanted to write about the death penalty, a topic that had chased me for over a decade. I’d only recently sold my first…

Read More

There is Only This Present Moment

By Peggy RosenthalSeptember 13, 2017

­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…

Read More

American Fool: The Theology of Denis Johnson

By Jay IrwinSeptember 12, 2017

Denis Johnson died this past summer at the age of sixty-seven. Many have said that he was the single greatest writer of his generation, and the praise is warranted. Johnson, in a class with Kafka, Babel, Hamsun, and Lowry, wrote impossible novels: a dream-writer whose vision blended plain-prose with the arabesque, comedy with violence, death…

Read More

Poetry Friday: “The Psalm of Your Face”

By Nicholas SamarasSeptember 1, 2017

“Lord, let…”: this is how nearly every sentence of Nicholas Samaras’s “The Psalm of Your Face” begins. It’s our own constant plea to God: Lord, let my neighbor be healed of cancer; Lord, let my son be safe in battle. In Samaras’s poem, the pleas “Lord, let…” are first focused on God’s imagined face. But…

Read More

Still Pilgrim

By Peggy RosenthalJuly 27, 2017

Still Pilgrim. Just the title of Angela Alaimo O’Donnell’s new poetry collection makes you pause. Pun and paradox reverberate through the title terms. A pilgrim is someone on a journey…a spiritual journey. “Still” can mean unmoving, motionless (definitely not journeying). But, further, “still” can mean ongoing, as in “I’m still doing that.” These contradictory concepts…

Read More

The Businessman’s Faith

By Brad FruhauffJuly 20, 2017

  One year ago, I abandoned the nonprofit and academic world to become a freelance copywriter, a man whose goal was to help businesses share their stories with the world. I fancied myself something of an author-consultant, a skilled writer who could chart out the best alignment of speaker, message, and audience. I told people…

Read More

Summer’s Heartbeat

By Natalie VestinJuly 19, 2017

On some summer nights, it seems the world is brighter, more visible in a quiet way, as if the dusk was created for your pleasure. On some summer nights, it seems you can see through the false dome of sky to what lies beyond, air glimmering just for you. There’s a vertiginous sense that the…

Read More

Practicing Presence, Part 1

By Gregory WolfeJune 26, 2017

The following two-part post was originally delivered as the 2017 commencement address for Trinity Academy in Portland, Oregon. Thank you for the high honor of inviting me to speak on this special occasion. My heartfelt congratulations to you graduating seniors for having reached this important milestone in your lives. Given the deep and demanding curriculum…

Read More

Courting Babel

By Natalie VestinJune 22, 2017

This month I thought it would be a good idea to take four hours of Arabic every week and an intensive JavaScript course all while working full-time. I was nervous about the Arabic, scared that I wouldn’t remember how to read or speak politely after three years away from formal lessons, but strangely, it came…

Read More

Do Atheists Dream of Pearly Gates?

By Brad FruhauffJune 13, 2017

Yes even when I don’t believe there is a place in me inaccessible to unbelief a patch of wild grace —Anna Kamieńska If humans are the only intelligent life in the universe, should we feel sad about that? Should we feel bereft, or disappointed? That’s how David Kestenbaum describes his feelings on a recent This…

Read More

Receive ImageUpdate, our free weekly newsletter featuring the best from Image and the world of arts & faith

* indicates required