White Crucifixion by Marc Chagall  It helps to know where you’re going. Few of us ever do. My wife and I had taken the train to Würzburg, Germany, only to learn most of the tourist sites were closed for the day. We decided to make the best of it, taking in what gardens and historic buildings remained open, and…

I would like to be a purple ghost / carried away by that kite… The effect of a veiled statue can be both unnerving and ridiculous. To wit: there’s a meme going around social media right now in which a statue of Christ with risen hands, draped in purple, looks absurdly like Grimace of McDonaldland. In a Catholic Church that practices the custom of veiling images during Lent,…

I live in Minnesota, where the new growing season starts in May. At our house, March and April are our designated months for emptying the freezer, when we try to eat all the produce we froze the summer before. Sautéed spinach, tomato sauce, diced rhubarb, ratatouille, chopped raw onions and bell peppers divvied into one-cup…

Wearing a hospital gown and blue-paper shorts I ease down, first onto my side, then gingerly onto my back that still protests after a month in response to once innocent movements. The technician slides a bolster under my knees, and warm blanket over them, hands me earplugs and an emergency call button, pushes a button,…

Spring feels obscene in the face of grief, either anticipated or past, and the speaker’s observations  in this poem give readers permission to voice that dissonance, to watch bloom, and to feel the weight of a stake driven into the earth while they remain slow in the bustling season, wondering quietly where the “rungs the light has laid down” lead and if they should follow.

“These Lenten weeks are wordless, gray and slow.” It takes poet Elizabeth Spires four verses to get to this line. Before this, the poem’s speaker imagines a more colorful and lively season, as the church garden’s peacock “spread its glorious tail.” The feathers remind the speaker “of doves descending, the promise of a season yet…

I used to steal away into the sanctuary of Community United Methodist Church when I was a kid—this is fifth, maybe sixth grade—and lay on my back in the cool wooden pews, staring up at the ceiling with nothing short of wonder. (Note: this wasn’t on Sunday morning or Wednesday evening or any other time…

As my husband prepared for an Easter sermon a few weeks ago, our dinnertime conversations during Lent turned to Jesus’s appearance to the disciples after his resurrection, to the episode where poor Thomas is saddled with his unfortunate moniker. Carravaggio painted a terribly potent picture of Thomas probing Jesus’s wounds, his lord’s flesh curving over…

Another campaign season is upon us with a vengeance. Actually it’s campaign seasons—since the U.S. presidential campaign goes on for over two years. That’s summer, fall, winter, spring, summer, fall, winter, spring, summer, and the final (gasp) fall. As for vengeance, this seems to increase with every four-year cycle. Could there possibly be more vengefulness…

Lent is upon us. If you want to make an Orthodox Christian commit the sin of pride (and thus, in theory at least, to have to go to Confession), then mention how hard it is to remember your decision to “give up” chocolate, or to complain about having to eat fish on Fridays during Lent.…